27th September, 2006

DAVID ADAMS

The separation of church and state preserves the notion of freedom for religion and liberates the church from the “baggage” of unpopular and difficult decision making while at the same time ensuring the state remains free of religious dogma, according to Federal Treasurer Peter Costello.

In a speech given to the Australian Christian Lobby’s conference held at the National Press Club in Canberra last weekend, Costello said the separation of church and state “derives from the teaching of Christ himself”.

“The separation of the State from religion liberates both,” he said. “It preserves freedom for religion. It liberates the church from the baggage of unpopular and difficult political decision-making. It liberates the State from the religious dogma which at times, has held back scientific process.”

Costello also controversially highlighted the establishment of modern Turkey as an “outstanding example” of a secular state which separates the religious domain in the Muslim world and suggested that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk “should be held out as a model for leadership for the modern Islamic world”.

Noting there are no countries in the modern world which claims to be Christian theocratic states, he said while at least three countries claim to be theocratic Islamic states and others which enforce religious or Sharia law, “for the radical Islamists even this is not enough”.

“They have a vision of a Caliphate stretching across the Middle East toppling what they see as corrupt nation states and enforcing a more ‘pure’ version of Islam,” he said.

Costello says that in contrast, he believed a secular national state can be adopted by Muslim societies and “that doing so will lead to greater technological and economic progress”.

Elsewhere in his speech, Costello recommended people read the speech the Pope made at the University of Regensburg earlier this month.

“Read the speech and wonder at the reaction,” Costello said, citing some of the responses to the speech including the burning of seven churches on the West Bank and Gaza and the burning of effigies of the Pope in Pakistan.

“No doubt the fire bombers on the West Bank and the demonstrators in Pakistan would claim that their actions were incited by the ‘insult’ of the Pope’s speech,” he said.

“But one can’t help thinking that there are some people who love to find an insult and have no concept of proportionality when they do so. We are moved to think that there are other agendas here. And one of those agendas is to stifle free speech and legitimate open inquiry.”

Elsewhere in his speech, Costello said that while there are “obvious Christian values” on racial and gender equality, property rights and the family, “in Caesar’s realm of ‘coinage and taxes’ finding the ‘true’ or ‘right’ Christian position is a little less clear”.

He warned that those who claimed to know the Christian position in such an area should be “careful”.

“I am still amazed that, during the GST debate, there were many Christian leaders so confident of the true ‘moral’ or ‘Christian’ policy on tax,” he said. “It is hard to find much support for a direct tax system over an indirect tax system in the Bible. Yet some Christian leaders were able to give very definite views, confidently predicting the disastrous consequences that would flow from the reform. Plainly that has not turned out to be the case. Plainly they were wrong.”

Other speakers at the conference included Shadow Treasurer Wayne Swan, Dr Greg Clarke, director of the Centre of Apologetic Scholarship and Education at New College, University of New South Wales, Associate Professor Rex Ahdat of the Faculty of Law at the University of Otago in New Zealand, and Professor John Braithwaite of the Australian National University.

~ www.acl.org.au