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ESSAY: WHY PRAYER IN PARLIAMENT IS JUST PART OF A MUCH BIGGER PICTURE

Australian Parliament

Uniting Church minister, radio commentator and Sight contributor PAUL CLARK looks at why, if Australia’s Federal Parliament considers removing the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer from its proceedings, the bigger picture of Parliament’s foundations should be taken into account…

From time-to-time various political parties move to remove the Lord’s Prayer from the proceedings of Australia’s Federal Parliament. It seems like a no-brainer in a pluralist, secular, post-Christian society, but it fails to understand the whole system is ‘Christian’, not just the prayer. The Greens have moved such a motion and it is subject to a Senate Inquiry. The following is a summary of my submission.

In a growing pluralist, secular society it seems an anachronism to be reciting the Lord’s Prayer before Federal Parliament. The perception in the general public may well be that it is a joke to see our parliamentarians mumble a Christian prayer, and then behave in unChristian-like ways in regards to immigrants, the poor and each other – although I acknowledge this is a media driven perception, not the actuality of our sacrificing and serving members.

Australian Parliament

Australia’s Parliament House. PICTURE: Alex Proimos (licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

 

“The Lord’s Prayer seems like a small thing. It is simply a brick in a wall. Removing it may have little immediate consequence, but it weakens the integrity of the wall. How crucial is this brick? How many bricks are essential? How was the wall built?”

My concern is not for the Christian loss of privilege, power or position. My concern is that removing the Lord’s prayer fails to understand that our parliamentary system is one-whole-system, built upon thousands of years of struggle with the Judeo-Christian worldview. Removing the Lord’s Prayer is removing an implicit reminder of where our system has come from, and undermines that system.

To use an analogy: If I invited you into my house to do a renovation, even a small renovation, I would be crazy if I didn’t ensure you understood the structure of the house. Moving a picture or cupboard would be fine, but to move a window or wall may make the roof fall in.

The Lord’s Prayer seems like a small thing. It is simply a brick in a wall. Removing it may have little immediate consequence, but it weakens the integrity of the wall. How crucial is this brick? How many bricks are essential? How was the wall built?

The Lord’s Prayer implicitly reminds us that our parliamentary system is a Judeo-Christian system. Large chunks of society may no longer be Judeo-Christian. That is fine. But we must understand that our system is, and if we remove the Judeo-Christian bricks from the system there is no reason to conclude the wall will stay up.

The Lord’s Prayer functions as a type of ‘acknowledgement of country’. It reminds us of our heritage. Where we have come from. Who has shaped and built our system. The ground on which we walk.

It is implicit, as unfortunately, most people have no understanding that:

• We have a Prime Minister, ministers, and public servants because of Jesus’ radical teaching on leadership – that whoever wants to be the greatest among us must be a servant (that is, must minister to us) (Matthew 20:25-27). 

• The above transformed our understanding of ‘leadership’ from a reward for greatness where the people were in your service, to leadership coming with great responsibility to serve the people. This is not an easily seen definition of leadership if you look around the world. The ‘greatness’ definition continues to battle our ‘servant leadership’ ideal where leaders want to use privilege to line their pockets, and exploit. We cut our understanding of leadership from Christ at great peril. It is not apparent that this definition of leadership can be maintained long term without him.

• Our understanding of leadership as ‘beyond tribe’ – that is, that our government represents all in the electorate, not simply those who voted for them – is also an ideal we owe to Christianity. Christianity, as a worldview that went beyond tribe, tongue, gender, class (Galatians 3:28) has again, been a civilising idea that is not at all obvious, and is not embedded in other cultures of the world.

• The separation of power is a Christian idea (that is, that no one person/party has all the power, but rather is held in check by others) that emerges from Trinitarian theology where, even in God’s very nature, God mutually submits Father, Son and Spirit.

• This flows into our Westminster system that has the various houses and independent judiciary, so no one person/party becomes a tyrant.

• Our meritocracy, rather than aristocracy, has again been a hard fought worldview that emerged from Christianity that we don’t want to lose.

• Our voting system, where each member of our community has a right to vote, from servant to king, male and female, land owner and peasant emerged because each person was seen as bearing the image of God. Each had the ability to be saved as individuals, therefore each must have the ability to make responsible decisions, and thus be free to cast a vote.

• The rule of law emerged from a Christian worldview that believed in a Lawgiver who was above all temporal rulers, and to whom all temporal rulers must give an account.

• The separation of church and state we again own to Jesus who exhorted us to “render unto God what was God’s, and unto Caesar what was Caesar’s”.  This profound idea gave birth to the secular state – it is not at all demonstrable that such a separation can be maintained for any length of time, without the one who gave it birth.

The above represent but the tip of the iceberg of the influence of the Judeo-Christian worldview in formulating our parliamentary and related social structure. These systems were not developed easily or overnight. They were often the result of war, tyranny, oppression, debate, sacrifice, argument and struggle. Many of the Christian ideals we now assume, were vigorously opposed, even by Christians (such as a woman’s right to vote) as the people did not understand the depth of Christianity’s original proclamation. We must understand how we came to our current system and what it is build on, before we decide to move a wall, for that wall may hold up the roof.

It does not matter if only a small fraction of the population adhere to Christianity. This is to miss the point. The society may no longer be Christian, but the system is! By all means remove the Lord’s Prayer – but not in a piecemeal way. Develop a robust, whole new system, based on a clear ‘secular’ or other foundation. Test it. Argue for it.  Don’t mistake foundational re-working for window dressing.

The Lord’s Prayer represents the ground-level of our system. If it were to be removed we would need an explicit memorial to our Judeo-Christian heritage upon which our parliamentary system was developed over a thousand years, to show the importance of its foundation.  A kind of ‘acknowledgement of heritage’ such as “This Parliament rises to acknowledge the Judeo-Christian heritage upon which our parliamentary system was built and developed, and upon which it hangs”. This is what the Lord’s Prayer currently does implicitly, and to remove it without realising that is foolhardy.

 

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