{"id":12676,"date":"2022-12-18T11:25:50","date_gmt":"2022-12-18T00:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/?p=12676"},"modified":"2022-12-18T16:05:52","modified_gmt":"2022-12-18T05:05:52","slug":"andrew-denton-report-reveals-gulf-between-conservative-christian-politics-and-voters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/2022\/12\/18\/andrew-denton-report-reveals-gulf-between-conservative-christian-politics-and-voters\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Denton: Report reveals gulf between conservative Christian politics and voters"},"content":{"rendered":"

This foreword appears in the newly published <\/i><\/b>Religiosity in Australia: Religion and politics<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

In May of 2022, as New South Wales’ parliament was on the verge of becoming the last state legislature to make voluntary assisted dying (VAD) law, veteran Labor MLC Greg Donnelly rose to urge institutions of faith to ignore that law.<\/span><\/p>\n

Citing St Thomas Aquinas\u2019 declaration that \u2018a human law not rooted in eternal law\u2019 is \u2018unjust\u2019, Donnelly, a devout Catholic, did not mince words.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cAs institutions, you should not cooperate at all with the implementation of the provisions of the legislation that would impact you as organisations … You must not do that, and you have an obligation not to do that. The law with regard to this is wrong.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a revealing moment. A lawmaker of faith, urging like-minded institutions to bury a law being passed by the secular institution he was elected to serve.<\/span><\/p>\n

His determination to act, not just politically in furtherance of a religious worldview, but against the clearly expressed views of the electorate, was a reminder that our nation\u2019s secularity is never guaranteed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Which is why this third volume of the Rationalist Society\u2019s series <\/span>Religiosity in Australia<\/span><\/i><\/a>, focussing on religion and politics, is both timeless, and timely.<\/span><\/p>\n

I will come to that but, first, I should explain where I set my stall when it comes to faith. <\/span>My father, whose family was Jewish, renounced all faith and declared that \u201cGod didn\u2019t believe in him\u201d. My mother, born-and-bred a Catholic, saw her faith fall away to the point where, on her deathbed, she declined a priest because she was not \u201cnot that much of a hypocrite\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Baptised Catholic, my education was largely Church schools, Catholic and Anglican. I can still hear the wooden screen sliding back as I took confession.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now in my 60s, I have zero sense of God in the universe. Neither do I have an answer to what happened before the Big Bang. Some friends remain appalled by my agnosticism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Evolutionary biologist, Robert Trivers, puts it well, I think: \u201cAs for this enormous universe and how it started, that\u2019s way beyond my capacity to say anything of value, and it\u2019s way beyond the capacity of humans to penetrate at the moment. All the alternative explanations you hear are equally absurd to me. The whole damn thing is incredible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Individual faith (gained and lost); the search for meaning; the ache for the numinous; the community of wonder: these often strike me as profoundly moving.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But individual faith, organised into powerful institutions or communities, and expressed politically? About this I have a more jaundiced view.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having engaged closely in multiple parliamentary debates about VAD, I\u2019ve seen up close how institutions and communities who claim to speak for the Divine, and of a higher morality, are capable of acting in ways that are profoundly human, and base.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, while my faith compass may not point due south, as it does for many in the Rationalist Society, we are as one in our support for a genuinely secular Australia.<\/span><\/p>\n

To me, this means a nation where people are free to follow any faith, and live by its tenets, as long as they are not in conflict with the laws of the land, and they do not impinge on the rights of others to lead the lives that are of value to them.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it also means a society which, even as it values and protects the right to worship and individual belief, does not allow such rights to override, or obliterate, the rights and values of the wider community.<\/span><\/p>\n

Enter, Neil Francis, and the extraordinary service he has performed in meticulously researching and documenting what contemporary Australians\u2019 religious values actually are, and how much they have shifted over recent decades.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Part 1 of the series<\/span><\/a>, he showed that, since the 70s, religiosity in Australia has weakened at a rate much greater than previously understood, and that many religious Australians are more socially progressive than leaders of their religions often claim.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Part 2<\/span><\/a>, he revealed a massive chasm in trust in churches between the trusting, very small minority of our most religious, and the deep distrust felt by most other Australians.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, <\/span>in Part 3<\/span><\/a>, he presents a detailed, empirically-researched, picture of the declining \u2014 sometimes surprising \u2014 role that religion has played in Australians\u2019 political engagement over recent decades.<\/span><\/p>\n

We learn of a nation where the abandonment of religion has moved beyond the weakly committed, and into the ranks of those who previously held to stronger beliefs; where very little of our sense of personal identity comes from religion; and where support for socially progressive issues towards sexual expression and gender roles has more than doubled, while the number of religious conservatives in opposition has more than halved.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though people who identify as \u2018religious\u2019 are more likely to favour Coalition over Labor policies on issues like the economy, immigration, and global warming \u2013 and even though Christians (whose numbers are declining), are more likely to favour the Coalition to form a \u2018strong government\u2019 \u2013 Francis\u2019 research shows that it is an alignment of conservative, self-interested, rather than religious – values which drives this support.<\/span><\/p>\n

His report also shows that religion and religiosity do not automatically translate to conservative social attitudes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most Australians, including a majority of religious conservatives, support some form of abortion service provision, as they do voluntary assisted dying. Across the socio-religious spectrum (other than the small percentage of religious and secular conservatives), Australians oppose religious schools discriminating against LGBTQI staff and students.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps most strikingly, only 5 per cent of Australians say that religion has a significant influence on their voting intentions. 86 per cent say religion doesn\u2019t influence their vote \u201cat all\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

His report also shows that religion and religiosity do not automatically translate to conservative social attitudes.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Francis says, this \u201cspells difficult times ahead for parties who promote [a] \u2026conservative religio-social agenda\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, in the same period that religion has been all but vanishing from our political thinking, political decisions have continued to be made which preference religiosity, and religious institutions, in Australia. Three examples:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n