My pew sheet blurb for this week- an election rant

As a minister, I have to be careful not to use the pulpit to push my own agendas inappropriately, but at the same time, I am called (as we all are) to be a prophet, standing up and speaking out for justice.

One of the problems in a ‘majority rules’ democracy is that unfortunately, the majority is not always right. We saw this in Jesus’ time, when he was often a lone voice speaking out against corruption, and what he said was so countercultural that we read a number of times in the gospels that the crowd was so angry at what he said, that they sought to kill him. We saw this phenomenon again in Nazi Germany, and I believe we are seeing it again here in Australia over the issue of asylum seekers.

I have been personally distressed and disgusted by the election campaigns of both major parties, that have included in their main ‘policy platforms’ (insofar as either party actually HAS any real policy), the promise to ‘tighten border security’ or ‘stop the boats’. When I first saw these ads on TV, I was outraged, and started ranting to anyone who stood still long enough, “Where is the compassion and justice in this?!” (and as Christians we all know that the Bible is full of requirements for God’s people to act justly, and to especially care for the vulnerable, like widows, orphans and foreigners, so I feel quite justified in my anger here).

In reading some stats provided by a member of our Synod Justice and International Mission (JIM) Unit: only 0.1% of people entered Australia by boat in the last year; refugee and humanitarian visas make up just 0.03% of all visas granted last year; we have had just over 23,000 come by boat in the past 35 years, it is obvious that we are not exactly being overrun by boat people, and over 90% of asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat over the past few years were found to be genuine refugees, so one has to ask, what are we afraid of?

It seems both parties are appealing to what a friend of mine described as, “some very nasty aspects of the Australian psyche - those phobias against almost any ‘not us’ group you can name.” That same friend lamented the fact that churches and religious organisations are not speaking out about this. This prompted me to see what the Uniting Church has been doing in the area, as well as sending an email to our Moderator, Isabel Thomas Dobson, and President Alistair Macrae, encouraging them both to be bold in speaking out on this topic on behalf of the church.

The results of this were a mixed bag. First, I found a great resource prepared by the Assembly to inform UCA people about the hot issues of this election. The info kit is called ‘Building an Economy for Life’, and can be downloaded from the Assembly website at http://nat.uca.org.au/election2010.html. There are also various issues papers that can be downloaded separately.

Both Alistair and Isabel responded to my email (in less than 24 hours!) with equal frustration. It seems the media are not interested in what the church has to say about these issues, they are too busy pandering to the ‘majority view’. Alistair commented, “Easier said than done to get media interest in our perspectives but we try,” and Isabel also sent me the text of a letter to the editor she sent to The Age and the Hobart Mercury, commenting on the election campaign generally, which was not published in either paper.

So what can we do? We can pray that justice will be done; we can write to our local candidates, expressing our concerns; we can become informed, and talk to anyone who will listen about the issues, and how the values of justice, mercy and compassion would have us respond.

Here endeth the rant.