Scott Morrison serves two masters: his God, as a Pentecostal believer; and his people, as a democratically elected leader. And as Ecclesiastics says: “Work hard, enjoy the fruits of your labour and do not be ashamed of your wealth.”
Little Johnny & the Trumpettes last played at the Barradine RSL Club but I left Barradine before them. So here I am in Stapleton Avenue in the Sutherland Shire, outside Scotty’s Pentecostal church, The Horizon. The band is playing tonight to raise money for the descendants of the First Fleet. Scotty has told the band what a terrible time the First Fleeters had.
The band has pulled up and getting their instruments out of Joey (“Chuckles”) Hockey’s old station wagon. He fell hard when his Washington lobbying firm when bust. All that effort sucking up to Trump and the man goes and gets himself unelected.
The senior pastors at the Horizon Church, Brad (“Ken”) and Alison (“Barbie”) Bonhomme rush to greet Scotty before disappearing into a building of cavernous spirituality.
I don’t like my chances of interviewing Scotty. The band is back on the road tomorrow but I want to talk to him about his days as PM. How he would wake up on Sunday mornings, go to the Horizon Church with his family, receive the grace of the Holy Spirit and then, a mere 24 hours later, how he would go back to labouring in the Augean stables of modern Australian politics. How did he do that?
Is this the lifestyle of a man in deep moral contradiction? A man operating in two counter-opposed moral universes? Or is Scotty a morally whole person, where the boundaries between his public and religious convictions are porous?
My questioning will be respectful of “Holiday’s” religious beliefs. It is a serious analysis, as there is a huge public interest in knowing whether his Christian beliefs animate the way he leads public policy making. If he were a private individual, my questions would be both unconstitutional (s116) and a massive invasion of a person’s privacy. But he isn’t. Scotty is a proud religious man and a proud public official. He serves two masters, his God, as a Pentecostal believer, and his people, as a democratically elected leader.
So, this inquiry is about whether the sacred-secular is dichotomised or integrated in the Prime Minister’s core beliefs. He has said he keeps them separate. As a public figure in a secular society, he would have to say that. I don’t believe him. To believe him, one would have to conclude that he is a hypocrite.
Remember when he brought a lump of coal into parliament in 2017 to goad the Opposition? Was his Pentecostal God there, egging him on? Or did he seek forgiveness for this bizarre act later from one of his religious mentors, Hillsong’s Brian Houston?
Then there was his love affair with Trump. Boy, did we cringe! It came to full fluorescence at the White House dinner Trump threw for him. How could Scotty even tolerate being in the same room as Trump? But the PM has been clear: he related to Trump as a whole entity. He loved and admired Trump.
And then there was the time Scotty asked the White House to allow Brian (“Lucky”) Houston, the senior investment advisor of the multi-million-dollar Hillsong franchise, to accompany him to meet Trump in September 2019? Leaders are in the habit of reaching out for religious counsel. Billy Graham comes to mind. Every American president from Harry Truman to Trump (yes) had religious engagements with Graham.
But to ask the White House to put Houston on the list, along with political advisors, photographer and personal assistants, doesn’t that sound odd? Was Morrison in complete awe of the charismatic Houston? Theologically captured even?
Pentecostalism recognises “intercessors”, people in ministry who are believed to have a direct line to God; the chosen people who know the mind of God. Scotty wanted Houston, the intercessor-in-chief, in Washington.
But it all came to nought. The White House refused the request. There are two possible reasons. The request was thought a bit odd, even creepy. Or they did not want any fallout for having the son of a paedophile part of the “virtuous” crowd that hung around Trump. Houston was censored by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse for not reporting his father (Hillsong’s founder, Frank Houston) to the police when Frank admitted sexual misconduct with a minor over many years.
Scotty’s church is located between Bunnings, a thriving engine of capitalism, and Woronora Cemetery, a venerated burial place where questions of the existence of God and the meaning of life echo across the gravestones. This geographic setup is emblematic of a wider trial for Scotty and all Christians – how to bridge the sacred-secular divide.
I am not talking about the conflicts that arise between church and government over hot-button issues such as abortion and euthanasia. These are moral conflicts. I am talking about the relationship between capitalism and religion. For mainstream churches (read, those with plummeting congregations), the rapprochement has always been edgy, if not downright conflictual.
Not so for the new Pentecostal churches. On the occasions I have attended their services, I have seen lots of joy, loud hip hop music, happy young families, intense religiosity … and lots of BMWs, Mercedes and Audis in the car park. The hand of Pentecostalism slips easily into the glove of capitalism.
Pentecostalism is new. It shouts cool modernity. It owes its vibrancy to being a successful schism within a schism. The first schism was the protestant split with Rome. Protestantism grew in the same soil as capitalism. Pentecostalism separated from Protestantism just after World War II. Pentecostalism spiritualises capitalism.
When Morrison gave his maiden speech on 14 February 2008, he confirmed there were three important things in his life: his family, his God, and his capitalism.
Growing up in a Christian home, I made a commitment to my faith at an early age and have been greatly assisted by the pastoral work of many dedicated church leaders, in particular the Reverend …Brian Houston… My personal faith in Jesus Christ is not a political agenda.
“Holidays” wants us to believe he does not refract his political decisions through the constructs of his religion. I do not believe him.
In the same maiden speech Scotty asks:
So, what values do I derive from my faith? My answer comes from Jeremiah, chapter 9:24: I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things, declares the Lord.
Choosing Jeremiah was a cunning move. Why didn’t he start at the beginning? In Genesis 1:28, God says we are to subdue the earth and have dominion over it. Right there is the sanctification of private property rights and Godly permission for his people to run the show on Earth. When Scotty brought the coal to parliament, he was just being consistent with Genesis 1:28. God bless him.
2 Cor 3:17 — and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty — tells Scotty that freedom is God’s wish for us. A clever intercessor would have little trouble putting on an extension lead so 2 Cor 3:17 includes the sanctification of the market, freedom to accumulate and dispose of private property and freedom against government action (that dreaded Socialism).
But when Horizon’s congregation hops into their BMWs after Sunday service for the trip home to their waterfront mansions, they do so with a biblical blessing. For Ecclesiastics 5:18-20 says:
Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil … Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil — this is the gift of God.
Work hard, enjoy the fruits of your labour and do not be ashamed of your wealth.
Yes I am being selective in my Biblical quotes. The Bible contains some fine moral principles about not being able to serve God and money (Matthew 6:24); the difficulty of getting into heaven if you are rich (Matthew 19:23); and helping the poor (Amos 8:4-7, Proverbs 31:9, Leviticus 23:22).
The main point is that we have in the Prime Minister a devout fundamentalist Christian who politicises the Bible to make it look like capitalism has God’s seal of approval. Be afraid.
Dr William De Maria is a Brisbane based writer and political commentator.
Comments
16 responses to “Searching for Scotty: using the Bible to show that capitalism has God’s seal of approval – Part 2”
Thank you William for this very interesting article
I am sure that many Christians who try to live up to the teachings of the founder of Christianity find it rather galling to watch fundamentalist politicians of the neoliberal capitalism variety trying to make selective use of biblical quotations to bolster their arguments.
It is interesting that Scott Morrison chose the verse in Jeremiah (9:24) as the one that has inspired him the most. I would ask when has he or any of his co-religionists in politics ever showed loving kindness to those who need it? All of their budgets seemed to be based on the opposite of the Christian principle of taking from the rich to give to the poor. It seem according to their philosophy the super wealthy are deserving of greater loving kindness that those who really need support.
A church like Hillsong in a commercial area is most apt
All the same, the B Minor Mass is one of my desert island discs. So is Cherubini’s C Minor Requiem performed at Beethoven’s funeral.
Super, thank you!
I’m bloody terrified William – there are so many of them!
Sir,
An interesting analysis. I too believe that religion is very harmful to a nuanced understanding of the real world. In religion, there are no grey areas (the Ten Commandments is the ten commandments) probably because it evolved to accommodate the needs of the illiterate and ignorant apart from the highly intellectual. The ignorant take the words of the religious book literally while the highly educated are more likely to see the teachings as allegories. However, when religion is appropriated for secular politics, it can cause a level of harm.
Firstly, religion is faith based. therefore faith in a political leader dispenses with justification through proof and rational argument for his actions and his claims. Donald Trump and his huge cohort of supporters in the bible belt of the US illustrates this. There is no need for proof that his presidency was stolen from him because he says so and his supporters have faith in him.
Secondly, because religion has to be very unambiguous, it does not tolerate ambiguity, or grey areas, in a real world. Very simply put, it conveniently classifies everything into two categories – good/God, bad/evil. Clever politicians use this dichotomy to vilify their opponents and anything that challenges their supremacy by throwing them into the basket of the bad/evil. To Trump, migrants from the south are in the bad basket, Islamists are in the bad basket, socialism is in the bad basket (therefore Russia and China are bad), Democrats are bad because they stole his election win and so on. There is no need to think too hard about the complexities of the real world. That makes winning supporters easier. When he says, “I’ll make America Great Again”, he will because they have faith in his statement. People who think that they have God on their side tend to act like God.
It is really very difficult for anyone to argue or rationalise with a person who thinks that he has God on his side. They do really believe that whatever they do, however inappropriate, is guided by the hand of God. That is why people can play with a lump of coal and ignore climate change. If the situation gets bad, they believe that God will solve the problem or that it works in mysterious ways to teach us a lesson. If they have God on their side all the time, does anyone think that they can win an argument against God? By saying the above, I am not trying to be disrespectful to people who have religious beliefs. What I intend is to point out is that religion should be kept apart from politics, if possible. In fact, I believe that people who use religion in politics, consciously or unconsciously, is not being respectful to God if there really is one in whatever form God is conceived to be. That is why religious people can readily find reasons to go to war and kill other people, commit crimes against children in their charge and make enemies out of people who have done them no harm. In fact, if I were religious, I would say that using God as an excuse is a sin against God.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
God did not make man, man made god. That’s all you need to know.
Man made God. And it was the Jews who made the monotheistic God for the Gentiles. “My God is better than your God”. Is it possible the Jews in the tribal lands of the Middle East 2,000 years ago, have inadvertently screwed up the minds of the people around the world?
Monotheism is not a Jewish invention, much as they would like us to believe it, but that idea, with its twin myth of the “Chosen People” lies at the heart of Jewish tribal identity. It is a doctrine based on a circular logic which is impenetrable to reason. It also lies at the heart of every modern tyranny, even those which profess a militant atheism. Consider notions like the “Vanguard Party” or the “Hidden Hand of the Market”. These are essentially ideas based on Jewish religious doctrines.
Granted monotheism was not a solely Jewish idea. As for the myth of “Chosen People”, I wonder whether this idea that they were the Chosen ones contributed to the many hundred years of pogroms in Europe. (https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Pogroms-1189-1190/) .
How about God guided man’s hand to create God?
Re the presumed “authority” of the Bible please check out a new book by Kristin Swenson titled A Most Peculiar Book The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible. It is reviewed on the Religion Despatches website.
The Old Testament has been augmented by religious nonsense and local dietary advice, but sets out the events of the Fall from Eden, aka TN, pronounced ‘Ssn’. For example it is a witness statement to the creation of the ocean basins, meaning a massive expansion of the Earth.
The New Testament tries to allow hope that a recurrent catastrophe, the “Christ”, will not terminate humans. It also sets up a timeline, based upon the exact conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter. So every 460 +30 years, currently, there will be a reappearance of the Christ. A Nova.
Sadly, we lost the 5th planet, the one between Mars and Jupiter, known as Abel or Apollo.
30 to 33 years to go, then. It should be some fireworks display!
Ken below best deals with the topic.
But also consider Morrison’s stated values from Jeremiah, chapter 9:24:
I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things, declares the Lord.
Loving Kindness? Asylum seekers and boat people
Justice? If you want justice go to a brothel, if you want to be screwed over go to court.
Righteousness on earth is beyond me – it can be whatever you want it to be.
Morrison needs to understand what secularism is, just as McCormack needs to understand that contentious facts is an oxymoron (like describing the IPA as a think tank).
Regards
Erik
Haha – I think you mean florescence.
Religion, even more than patriotism, can be a refuge for scoundrels.