The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has fired the opening shot in a campaign targeting rebel Liberal MPs who crossed the floor to amend the federal government’s religious discrimination bill.
The peak group has launched polling to ask voters in two marginal seats whether they knew how their local members voted on “protecting faith-based schools” two months ago, when five Liberals backed an amendment to prevent schools from discriminating against transgender students.
- Sydney Morning Herald, 16th Apr 2022
What a strange time we find ourselves in. The Australian Christian Lobby polled voters in the two marginal seats of Higgins and Wentworth; with the sitting members of Katie Allen and Dave Sharma respectively. The only problem that I have with this is, is the motive of the poll. Is this a poll which is designed to find out what voters think? Or is this (as I suspect that it is) a poll which is designed not as a fact finding instrument but a shame generating instrument. My suspicion is that the ACL wants to generate shame in someone who was thinking about voting for someone other than the Liberal Party in these electorates and to generate shame in the candidates themselves by reminding them of who really pulls the strings.
The Division of Higgins used to be a blue ribbon seat, as it was the seat of both former Prime Ministers Harold Holt and John Gorton as well as former Treasurer Peter Costello. Likewise, the Division of Wentworth was the seat of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and former Opposition Leader Dr John Hewson AM.
The Australian Christian Lobby seems to subscribe to some kind of self-serving prosperity gospel. The bottom line is the bottom line and the ugly truth is that children can can only go to a faith based school if their parents have the means to pay. Sure, the students of these schools might be taught about helping the needy/marginalised but in reality, they get more funding then the people they’re taught to help. If we look at the kinds of people that these schools train and release into society, then we get a greater proportion of graduates who then get into parliaments and pass legislation to maintain the status quo.
Even stranger is that it is public schools which actually educate the vast majority of the children of the poor. I wonder what Christ would make of this.
By means of background, the Australian Christian Coalition (ACC) was founded in 1995 by John Gagliardi who was once the editor of the Townsville Bulletin, the Chief of Staff of National Nine TV News in Brisbane and Assistant Features Editor of The Telegraph in Brisbane. He was joined by a retired Baptist minister named John McNicoll, and John Miller who was a lay leader in his Canberra church.
In 2000, the chair passed to ex SAS officer Jim Wallace; who then re-modelled the company, on Christian hard right lobby groups in the USA. In 2001, the ACC then changed its name to the Australian Christian Lobby. The Australian Christian Lobby describes itself as "Peak Group" even though it is a public company limited by guarantee.
https://www.abr.business.gov.au/AbnHistory/View?id=40075120517
Entity type: Australian Public Company
- ABR, as at 16th Apr 2022
A "Peak Group" is an advocacy group or trade association, which has a membership structure made up via an association of industries or groups with allied interests but the Australian Christian Lobby has neither of those things. It is just a public company.
Funding for the company comes from about 200,000 individuals and while it states that it no political affiliation that is kind of betrayed by the fact that they swung behind the re-election of John Howard in 2004 and the election of Family First to the Senate (Family First would eventually merge with the Australian Conservatives).
More recently the self appointed Conservative Christian lobbying company has found even closer connections to the Pentecostal right of the Liberal Party and in particular the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison.
Here's the rub: I do not believe that the Australian Christian Lobby necessarily actually cares about the issues of dog-whistle politics which they purport to lobby for. I find it strange that these people appear to believe that poverty is a choice and that poorer people should be demonised. I suspect that the ACL is very different to the ACC which it was started as.
The ACL in 'polling' marginal seats in this election, looks less like it actually cares about the issue at hand and more about using guilt to get people in the seats of concern, to vote in the ways that the company wants.
I think that what we've seen in the United States, where Christianity itself is viewed by politics as less as a set of doctrinal principles and more as a bloc of voters who can be identified as having a group identity. In the United States, polling companies and marketing drives were largely behind the swing since about 2008 to the Republican Party of so-called nominally 'evangelical' voters; so much so that the word 'evangelical' is tainted in the mouths of Christians who would have used it as a technical word.
One of the things that happens when you have had the wool pulled over your eyes is that its easier to fleece you. That's somewhat easier to do when it comes to Christians because they are on the whole, more kind, more caring and more agreeable than the general population and as such, are also easier to push around as a herd. The sad fact is that employing rather simplistic citations from the Bible in public discourse is neat trick and is often wrong and disingenuous.
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness,
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
- Venetians 1:3
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