As the festive season goodwill fades, we can but hope that 2023 will be a better year for Christianity after a bad 2022… A recent court case involving Wanslea, a West Australian foster care agency, has once more brought the problem of anti-Christian discrimination to light when a married couple, members of the Free Reform Christian Church, were allegedly denied an adoption because of their religion. At least the WA Administrative Tribunal confirmed the complaint and awarded compensation to the couple.
A Western Australian tribunal has found a Christian couple were discriminated against when their application to foster a child was rejected over their view that homosexuality is a sin.
The experience of Andrew Thorburn at Essendon Football Club confirmed how much attitudes in general, and to religion in particular, have changed over 50 years. Having seen Prime Minister Morrison abused in the press for his Christianity and Andrew Thorburn ejected from his role, this change has gone too far to the point that it is undermining our society.
Even more disturbing is the commentary from the Victorian Premier and the state’s Human Rights Commissioner. Being sacked for having certain views, views unrelated to the job, is no longer considered unacceptable in the eyes of our leaders.
Another disturbing intrusion in Victoria came from the Liberal Party, where an election candidate was banned from the party room because of her ‘extreme’ Christian views on gender and abortion; no mention has been made of equivalent views held by Muslim candidates. This was another self-inflicted injury to the party’s election prospects, adding to the predictable resulting loss.
As a young boy, I grew up in post-war London, a place both physically and psychologically recovering from the onslaught. The war had taken its toll, with morale maintained by Winston Churchill, Christian belief, and copious cups of tea. There were bomb sites, some containing unexploded ordinance, being used as playgrounds. Despite this adversity, people were happy to still be alive, as many weren’t. The church provided succour and there was little need for counselling.
All boys in this era were required to go to Sunday School and sing in the choir; I achieved a brief moment of success as a chorister in Westminster Abbey, then adolescence struck and my voice permanently changed. My subsequent religious exposure was minimal; I had, by this stage, become a medical student and found the non-evidence-based leap of faith difficult to achieve.
There is no doubt that the Christian ethos has provided the basis of our Western society, but this source of good is steadily being undermined by modernity. The 2021 Australian census statistics showed a rapid decline in those who identify as Christian falling from 68 per cent in 2003, to 52 per cent in 2016, and 44 per cent in 2021. 30 per cent now identify as having no religion. Christian faith is seemingly replaced by alternative pseudo-religions such as Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter. Taking the knee has been given a new meaning; I was taught that there were only three reasons to take the knee – to pray in church, to propose marriage, and when being knighted by the Monarch! It now seems an obligatory gesture for many sporting events, the most recent being on the cricket pitch.
Although not religious, I find the increasing intolerance of those who are difficult to fathom. We are reminded that, in past centuries, wars were regularly fought under the Christian banner – although producing nothing like the loss of life that ensued in more recent times from communism, fascism, or the numerous Islamic caliphates.
The vicious nature of social media commentary fails to recognise the good Christianity has done; it has fed the poor, supported women, abolished slavery, and provided the moral backbone of our society. To condemn it for the past sins of a few paedophiles is disproportionate; Cardinal Pell was, fortunately only temporarily, convicted for the sins of others, rather than his own.
Other religions do not stack up well in their treatment of the oppressed. In countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and India, having a religion, the wrong religion, or leaving a religion, can result in a death sentence either by the law or from the mob. The fact that many of these countries sit on the committee of the United Nations Human Rights Commission adds to hypocrisy at the highest levels. The egregious example of the UN, refusing to even debate its own report on China’s persecution of Uighur Muslim ethnic minorities, demonstrated a new low.
Activists in Australia country continue to persecute Christianity whilst ignoring the attitudes of Islam to women’s rights and homosexuality. Why the discrepancy of criticising one religion and not the other?
Their attempts at undermining Christmas traditions exemplify their agenda. As seen in 2022, it is increasingly problematic to allow nativity scenes and the singing of carols without individuals or local councils worrying about offence being taken. Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, remains under a fatwa (threat of death). He tellingly stated, ‘Freedom of speech is freedom to offend.’ His attempted assassination revealed the less than benign aspect of that religion.
As a now retired doctor, I have lived and worked in many countries and have witnessed all the main religions of Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. I have even dealt with medical problems caused by Animism and Voodoo. Outside the Western-orientated countries, I found an oasis (pardon the pun) of religious tolerance in the United Arab Emirates. Having lived in several countries in Arabia, I found that Dubai and Sharjah had Christian churches tolerated, although hidden away. That accommodation between two monotheistic religions was even more apparent in the Lebanon of yesteryear, until the Sunni/Shia Islamic fundamentalism divided the country with civil war. It is not that long ago that the ‘people of the book’ recognised their common ground, that view has been undermined in recent years by the attempts of an extreme form of Islam to establish dominance.
At Christmas, when Australian activists berate those who follow their faith, it is difficult to retain the spirit of goodwill the Bible eschews; local councils, such as Mosman, ban nativity scenes, and attempt to turn the holiday, (holy day) into a multicultural event. In the UK, even the definition of the holiday has been changed by some institutions; phrases such as ‘happy winter closure’ and ‘joyful holiday break’, have been substituted. In December, a British woman was arrested by police for silently praying outside an abortion clinic in Birmingham, the charge being ‘protesting and engaging in an act that is intimidating to service users’; this in clear contravention of European freedom of speech and freedom of assembly legislation.
Goodwill is far more evident in Dubai, with the shopkeepers happy to supply presents for the Christmas festival and carols playing in the shopping malls. In one year, the fixed festivals of Hindu Diwali in October/November and Christmas in December, were neatly intersected by the moving date of Ramadan, which, in the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, was in November that year; all the gifts were pragmatically repurposed if not sold! Conversely, other countries, such as Pakistan and Nigeria actively threaten Christians.
When I lived in Germany the giving of presents, Christmas trees, decorations, and lighting all followed the customs of the past. The non-Christian influx in many European countries has produced an opportunity for the extreme Left to undermine that tradition based on its potential to offend immigrants; Germany’s Islamic population has exploded to over 5 million, with nearly 3,000 mosques. Mono-cultural Scandinavian countries have the highest level of happiness in the world because their traditions have been retained rather than cancelled. Even the mention of the word Christmas has come under increasing threat; in the interest of inclusion, (as opposed to exclusion), the European Union banned its use in its official documents (later forced to withdraw from the position after complaints).
The 2021 census confirmed the dramatic decline in religious observance, with an associated decline in church weddings, from a historical 95 per cent, to now 20 per cent. As marriage is in decline and divorce increasing, 16 per cent of families are now, to their children’s detriment, single parents. Many children have little knowledge of the significance of Christmas, looking on the event solely as a time for family gatherings and presents. To even claim to be a Christian often encourages abuse. How can it be that we have a Human Rights Commission, but no action is taken when, as with Andrew Thorburn, a job is lost because of religious belief?
During nine years of Coalition government, religious freedom legislation was one of the many ‘too difficult’ challenges it failed to promote. Initially raised by Phillip Ruddock’s expert panel in 2018, it took until February 2022 before attempts were made to address the issue, with religious protection legislation possible in 2023. Western society is abrogating its history, Christianity is being persecuted and is bizarrely seen as some sort of moral turpitude, and marriage is under siege; what will be left to keep our society together, will climate change or some other high moral activist agenda become a poor substitute? Unless changes are made, the days of traditional celebration of Christmas may be soon gone.
