God is Back...

My old friend, The Weekend Australian, published an article on the weekend entitled, "Nations Prosper with God on their Side." It was essentially an edited abstract from a new book called, "God is Back: How the Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World". The book is written by John Micklewait (editor-in-chief on The Economist) and Adrian Wooldridge (Washington bureau chief of the London-based weekly magazine) and looks at the reasons why spirituality and religion have persisted in the modern world when many predicted that it would die off in a puff of well-reasoned secularism.

The book seems to be social/cultural/historical examination of the relationship between religion and modernity, and traces two histories of the development of modern culture in Europe and America, and thier two very different approaches to religion. The European idea is that you can't become modern while holding onto religion, and the American idea is that you can become modern and still find a place for religion in public life. There is much more to it, but that seems to be the main thrust.

Anyway, read the article or buy the book... (I've read the article but will have to ask my wife whether we can spare $60 for the book)...

At the end of this article, the authors say, "The basic message of our book is a profoundly liberal one. Unevenly and gradually, religion is becoming a matter of choice - something that individuals decide to believe in (or not). Secularists need to recognise that the enemy that "poisons everything" is not religion but the union of religion and power and believers need to recognise that religion flourishes best where it operates in a world of free choice, that, as that doughty free thinker Benjamin Franklin once put it, "When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."

There are two points that particularly interest me here. The first is that "religion flourishes best where it operates in a world of free choice". The reason this interests me is because of my role in SU Qld in developing state school chaplaincy. What a lot of people don't realise with Chaplaincy, is that Education Queensland defines Chaplaincy - not SU Qld. Chaplaincy is an Education Queensland program that SU Qld is accredited to deliver on their behalf, not an SU Qld program that we deliver in Education Queensland schools. As such, Education Queensland policy says that, "Programs of chaplaincy services are [must be] compatible with policies and practices that apply to delivery of any service in a multi-faith and multicultural state school community". This is not a situation that many Christians would be, or are, comfortable with. They would rather that state governments were a theocracy; that Christians ran the show in relation to Chaplaincy and Christian ministry in schools; and that Christians had preferential access to schools and the kids in them for evangelistic purposes.

What "God is Back" seems to suggest to us, is something that many of us have suspected for awhile. And this is, that the situation we have in Queensland schools, with all faiths and worldviews "getting a seat at the table", is the best situation that any religious group could hope for. Not only does it make the most sense in a modern, pluralistic, multi-faith and multi-cultural society that this would be the case, as it turns out, it is actually the situation that best promotes spirituality in a society. It could then be argued that the best and fairest thing for Christians to do in such a society, is not to fight for "Christian" access to schools, but to continue to fight for the access of all faiths and religions to schools. It is in this environment of "choice and competition" that real faith and spirituality seems to flourish.

The second point that interests me is found in the quote from Benjamin Franklin. That, "When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one. The presence of Christians in schools should result in people being able to see that the "God things" in life equal the "good things" in life. If our faith is any good, then we shouldn't need to ask the government for preferential treatment and access to kids to promote the Christian cause (however we understand this). Schools should be knocking down the doors to get Chaplains and churches into schools because they know that their children, young people, staff, families and whole school community, are going to be better off from the association.

Happily, this is that case in many situations. And where it is not, let's hope that the Christians are asking themselves why?

Shalom...