Monday 27 August 2007

Separation of church and state in Australia - some random observations

1. While we have a legal separation of church and state in Australia we have an informal establishment in which church leaders, anglicans, Catholics and increasingly Pentecostals have an access to the political and economic centers of power in Australian society that minority christian groups and other faith communities do not.

2. The scope of delivery of government programs in Australia by non-goverment organisations including church related welfare, health and education programs has been increasing at an apparently exponential rate. This poses risks to both the government and the organisations. The web of connection and complicity is becoming even more deeply woven with each additional discretionary funding program.

3. The requirements attached to funding programs are increasingly raising the question of separation of church and state not because of tengagement of faith related bodies in the public sphere but because of the interference by the state in church related bodies.

4. The increasing pressure of global issues will place increasing pressure on Christian churches to confront the state over issues that cross national boundaries, global warming, questions of war and peace particularly if they recover their own integrity as a body that crosses national boundaries and whose roots are in the first commandment - you shall have no other gods before me.

1 comment:

Pat R said...

interesting... an unintended, genius aspect of democracy is that the state of the government will represent the state of the people. We needn't impose any particular religion on our government. Whether or not our government is morally stable will reflect the moral stability of us, the people. So how are we doing?