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The attention on Scott Morrison’s #pentecostal faith hasn’t let up! Here’s how it looks to me as a practicing Xn & Xn worker #auspol 1/
I’m just an interested party blah blah blah, no great expertise here 2/
FYI I’m a Xn. UCA as a child, Lutheran high school, Anglicans, today home church in AU is Baptist, but where I live it’s AOG, & pentecostalism is also part of my wife’s research. I work for two interdenominational Xn NGOs 3/
35yo rich white boy from Adelaide. Ambivalent about party politics, don’t identify as conservative or progressive, lean a bit communitarian, believe Babylon aka empire must be recognised & resisted 4/
First up, Scott Morrison and his politics are hardly new, right!? It all fits perfectly in line with existing #auspol culture 5/
So Morrison makes more sense to me as a standard Australian politician than as a Xn. Is there anything distinctively pentecostal or even Xn about him as PM!? 6/
So Jonathan Foye (Insights Aug 2018) likens Morrison to Tony Abbott, who said “faith has influenced my life but it has not influenced my #auspol” https://www.insights.uca.org.au/church-and-state-scott-morrisons-faith-and-public-policy/ 7/
That kind of statement is totally understandable in the sense of preventing personal preferences from influencing public policy. That’s to be expected in Australia https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2018/10/19/scott-morrison-faith-policy/ 8/
But the trend in #auspol today has gone beyond that sort of impartiality to the suppressing or fraying of moral convictions 9/
So it has been observed that for various PMs, including Morrison, morality/faith caves to #auspol expediency. See @annabelcrabb Sep 2019 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-04/politics-and-religion/11474738 10/
Paul Tyson (Ethos Mar 2019) gives this explanation: “Mr Morrison is a genuine liberal secularist. He is adept at separating out personal morality & private conviction (the liberal arena of freedom) from public facts & pragmatic realism (the management arena of necessity)” 11/
So while ‘pentecostal’ might be new to you, Morrison’s politics is all too familiar, with faith & theology basically cut out of the picture 12/
And I don’t think this is a good thing! Tyson concludes, “The public arena has no room for any genuinely moral conviction or any transcendently referenced commitments… 13/
“Scott Morrison’s religion and morality is wonderfully personally quarantined from his #auspol policy imperatives. …His actual actions and policies are without any obvious moral or religious limits” http://www.ethos.org.au/online-resources/Engage-Mail/scott-morrisons-pentecostalism 14/
If this is the case, then Scott Morrison isn’t a manifestation of religious extremism, but of liberal secularism taken to a logical endpoint 15/
I mean, when you say religion should be cut out of #auspol because “faith is a private matter,” isn't that exactly what Scott Morrison is already demonstrating!? A compartmentalised life with a privatised faith and a pragmatic politics 16/
Meaning his faith and his #auspol have been cut off from one another, they’re two separate entities. Are they still talking to one another? 17/
Meaning his #auspol doesn’t have moral checks and balances that we can reliably depend on. Where are his theological influences? It’s just kind of hard to tell 18/
Meaning (if this is true) the disturbing thing isn’t that he’s a Xn, or the wrong sort of Xn. It’s that there’s a gap between his his source of morality and his #auspol 19/
If his #auspol was obviously animated by or connected with faith & theology, then a whole raft of positive influences from various Xn traditions (including pentecostal traditions) could be brought to bear on his leadership. But do we know if that’s even still possible!? 20/
This sacred-secular divide is hardly just a Xn problem. It’s part of our world, the Global North / post-Enlightenment Western world. It’s the sea we and #auspol swim in 21/
So when I look at it, I see Morrison as a 100% run of the mill modern man. And yes, he’s a legit Xn—but I wish I knew what that meant beyond his private individual realm that he generally seems to keep quarantined 22/
So people no need to worry about rapture theology 23/
And you know what? You and I are probably in pieces ourselves. Can WE be depended on do what’s right instead of what’s pragmatic? Are WE whole & integrated in our selves & our households & our communities? How’s the angst going for ya there #auspol 24/
Also relevant is this short interview re climate change skepticism among USA Xns. It doesn’t map easily onto #auspol (USA Xns really are their own thing) but it might help a bit with understanding TEH HORRIBLE CHRISTIUNZ https://religionandpolitics.org/2020/03/10/the-gospel-of-climate-change-skepticism/ 25/
Look I reckon just go and find some Xn friends who have a vaguely similar political vibe to you. They're around. And I’m pretty sure you’ll feel better for it 26/
Peace be with you 27/27
