Tony Abbott declares Christianity to be a problem

[pim]

Now please, forget about your faux and shallow atheist barrow-pushing and your point-scoring and focus on the substantive issue.

But first, read this link www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-28/tony-abbott-urges-european-leaders-to-turn-back-asylum-seekers/6890886

Better still read the transcript because the ABC report leaves out his attacks on Christian values www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-28/full-transcript-of-tony-abbott-speech/6891060?appref=flagship_android


Bear in mind this is from a former seminarian, a trainee Catholic priest. Particularly this part: Naturally, the safety and prosperity that exists almost uniquely in Western countries is an irresistible magnet. These blessings are not the accidents of history but the product of values painstakingly discerned and refined, and of practices carefully cultivated and reinforced over hundreds of years. Implicitly or explicitly, the imperative to "love your neighbour as you love yourself" is at the heart of every Western polity. It expresses itself in laws protecting workers, in strong social security safety nets, and in the readiness to take in refugees. It's what makes us decent and humane countries as well as prosperous ones, but - right now - this wholesome instinct is leading much of Europe into catastrophic error.


I don’t have the time to unpack that right now but I do believe those remarks deserve a thoughtful critique because they are devastating in what they say about the values he claims to be defending. In Vietnam an American general said of a village devastated by napalm that they'd had to destroy the village in order to save it. Is Abbott proposing to do the same to the Christian values he claims are at the core of Western civilisation?

What that guy says still matters, given that the prime minister who replaced him finds himself more and more obliged to implement the Abbott agenda on climate change, on same sex marriage, on asylum seekers and on just about any other policy you'd care to mention.

[pim]

The "love thy neighbour" reference is Mark 12.28-34 The most important [commandment],” answered Jesus, “is this: ...'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.


This is what Abbott says is a "problem". I'm not surprised at the reaction but it's not enough. This is the greatest direct challenge to core Christian values that you're ever likely to see from a public figure. To dismiss it with "Abbott's an idiot" is about as unhelpful as saying that Hitler was a one-off homicidal maniac. Unless of course you want to let the Germans off the hook for WW2 and claim it was all down to one man. Similarly Abbott's evil distortions of Christianity at that gathering aren't just a reflection on Abbott. They reflect on the type of thinking that’s abroad in society today, that finds its political expression in the Tea Party in the US, in Stephen Harper in Canada, in Geert Wilders in NL etc etc.


I look forward (he says with tongue wedged in cheek) to a ringing denunciation of Abbott's remarks from Cardinal Pell!


You won't just find "love thy neighbour" in Mark's gospel ...


1 John 4: "And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister."

Hebrews 13: "Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it."

1 Thessalonians 5 (King James Bible): "Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss."

Romans 15: "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God."

Romans 14: "As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions."

Psalms 133: "Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!"

Luke 6: "But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked."

Romans 13: "Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."


Colossians 3: "And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."

1 Corinthians 13: "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

2 Corinthians 13: "Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you."

1 John 4: "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."

Romans 13: "The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself."

[KTJ]

Yes, Reverend Pim.

[pim]

From KTJ who utterly and unsurprisingly completely misses the point

[KTJ]

Then there is all the other stuff in that book about killing and stoning and all the other perverted bits in it.

[pim]

www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-28/baird-what-abbott-gets-wrong-about-the-gospel/6893066


Love your neighbour: What Abbott gets wrong about the Gospel


Tony Abbott says the instinct to "love your neighbour" has led Europe to make catastrophic errors in its response to the Syrian refugee crisis. But compassion is at the very core of his faith and his church. To shrug it off is not just theologically dodgy, but politically fraught, writes Julia Baird.


It's difficult to work out what the greater shock was: hearing former Prime Minister Tony Abbott say that the imperative to "love your neighbour as yourself" was at the heart of every western polity - including protection for workers and a strong safety net - or to hear him breezily dismiss it in the next breath. Well may it be, he told the crowd at the Second Annual Margaret Thatcher Centre Gala in London, to be decent and humane regarding refugees, but right now "this wholesome instinct" to love our neighbours is "leading much of Europe into catastrophic error". The problem is, it's not an instinct it's a commandment. It's not optional but compulsory. And caring for the homeless, the orphans, the widows, the strangers is not just an occasional, arbitrary tangent in the Bible but a central theme throughout. To say that there's a limit to, or confusion around, an unlimited, explicit statement is a very peculiar justification for denying entry to those seeking asylum. And in denying its universal application, Mr Abbott is putting himself profoundly at odds with the leader of his own church.


Pope Francis, who has taken a forceful stance on the need for compassion for the plight of asylum seekers everywhere, recently said: "Biblical revelation urges us to welcome the stranger; it tells us that in so doing, we open our doors to God, and that in the faces of others we see the face of Christ himself." He has called on every Catholic parish in Europe to house at least one family of refugees, and is himself housing one in the Vatican. The verses the Pope drew on are in Matthew 25, where Jesus says in heaven people will be told that what they did for the most vulnerable, they did for him:


For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. When the people ask, puzzled, when did we do any of that to you? He will respond: "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.",


This is what the Bible tells us. So were we to think of refugees as the face of Jesus, how might we treat them differently? With dignity, perhaps. And kindness. As Pope Francis beautifully put it:


At the heart of the gospel of mercy, the encounter and acceptance by others are intertwined with the encounter and acceptance of God himself. Welcoming others means welcoming God in person!


Which doesn't seem to be the general vibe on Nauru or Manus Island. The Pope does not single out "economic migrants" for rough treatment, as Mr Abbott did again in his speech, saying anyone who had crossed more than one border was by definition an economic migrant in cahoots with people smugglers: "They had already escaped persecution when they decided to move again."



In contrast, the Pope said, generously, refugees are merely seeking "a better, more prosperous life" for their families, like all of us. They are "our brothers and sisters in search of a better life, far away from poverty, hunger, exploitation and the unjust distribution of the planet's resources, which are meant to be equitably shared by all." Mr Abbott has invoked faith against asylum seekers before, telling ABC Perth radio that fleeing persecution by boat flouted the tenets of the faith: "I don't think it's a very Christian thing to come in by the back door rather than the front door," he said. Is it Christian to ask if you can spend a night in the stables? What is most revealing in these statements is the sense that politics and faith are separate spheres that only occasionally intersect - why they are more likely to on the subject of, say, marriage equality rather than immigration is a matter of mystery. Over the past few years there has been a subterranean, fierce struggle within the Coalition about when the Bible matters, and what the teachings on compassion, kindness and the duty of care mean when it comes to refugees. But it is clear that Mr Abbott is marking out a good leader as one who knows how and when to ignore or bypass fundamental precepts of private belief. More, say, Tina Turner than the Good Samaritan.



Unease about this is increasingly felt more broadly in the community. It is not surprising that Catholic bishops like Retired Bishop Pat Power and Jesuit priest Father Frank Brennan immediately slammed Mr Abbott's remarks as "appalling". The number of those in the church community troubled and angered by our harsh many-layered system of deterrence has grown, and they have become more vocal. Over the past couple of years, more than 200 church leaders including Catholic nuns, have risked arrest during quiet, peaceful protests and sit-ins in politicians' offices. They are part of a faith-based movement called Love Makes a Way that seeks better treatment for asylum seekers, and their leader, Jarrod McKenna, was stunned to hear of Mr Abbott's remarks. The Rev. McKenna, also the Teaching Pastor of Westcity Church in Perth said: "Wherever the love Jesus teaches leads is what all Christians should long for; not warn against. If I was Mr Abbott's pastor I'd be sitting him down for some intensive Bible studies about how Jesus's love is not a "wholesome instinct", nor an optional extra but a concrete practice of putting love in action. If "loving thy neighbour" is an error, I pray we'd all be found guilty of it." If our former PM is struggling to know how to apply "love thy neighbour" - in Europe or elsewhere, Mr. McKenna suggested "he asks how we can 'do to others as we would want them to do to us' if we were in their situation needing safety."


There are many reasons to carefully monitor borders, and try to stem the numbers of those taking dangerous voyages by sea. The scale of the problem in Europe is immense, and the vastness of the need overwhelming. But what Mr Abbott is dismissing as a naive, wholesome instinct is at the very core of his faith and his church. To shrug off compassion as catastrophic is not just psychologically perilous and theologically dodgy, but politically fraught. And perhaps worst of all, it just makes no sense.


Julia Baird is a host of The Drum on ABCTV. She tweets at @bairdjulia.

[pim]

My point was a religious one. This is, after all, the Religion Board. I realise and appreciate that there is a political dimension to this and I have lots of juicy views on the politics which I'd be happy to share - but on the General Board. I watched Annabel Crabb's Kitchen Cabinet tonight in which she lunched with Scott Morrison who prepared a curry for the occasion. I'll gloss over the politics because this isn't the board for it. God got a bit of a mention. Not much. Annabel didn't push too hard on the God thing. But it’s public knowledge that Scott Morrison is a religious man, in an evangelical happy clapper God Inc kinda way. I'd like to know what ScoMo makes of the Mad Monk's view, expressed at that very swanky London dinner in front of all those Thatcher-luvvies, that the Good Samaritan was not just an idiot but downright seditious for stopping and helping the robbery victim, and that Jesus should be condemned for commanding Christians to "love thy neighbour" instead of having it as an optional extra.

[pim]

Poor Margie. It's the first time I've seen her portrayed in a political cartoon. Blameless woman. I do like the Popemobile touch. And speaking of the Pope if a very public Catholic, one-time trainee priest and erstwhile prime minister of a country like Australia gets up before an august body like the Margaret Thatcher Appreciation Society in the heart of the British Establishment, the Guildhall in London, at a black tie dinner, and pronounces "love thy neighbour" to be an optional extra among "Christian" values, the Pope shouldn't stay silent. In fact anathemas should be thundering forth from the Vatican in response to this egregious and monstrous heresy. Stay tuned.

[Deleted]

That's Wiki 'touching' on a theme?

Blimey! 

[pim]

Is there any truth to the rumour that Tony Abbott, having used his last period of enforced idleness in the aftermath of the Howard wipeout in the 2007 elections to write his oft-quoted Battlelines, now that he's in his second spell as a backbencher, is working on a much deeper magnum opus which he plans to call Disagreeing With Jesus?