Religion & the Secular State

In the light of the current discussions on the nature of the “secular” in relation to religion in the public arena, particularly where government funding of religious programs in state schools is concerned, or even access of religious groups within the education system, it’s sometimes helpful to hear a voice from outside.

See Thio Li-ann: Religion & the Secular State. It is in response to document pointed out by a colleague today: Religion and the Secular State: National Reports as presented to the 2010 International Congress of Comparative Law. The report is over 800 pages, but p87ff gives an informed and concise account of the state of play in Australia between state and religious organisations from a historical and legal perspective. It’s worth reading because so many confuse the pervasive US stance as the rule of thumb for all free democratic societies.

Thio Li-ann’s response clarifies multiple ways of defining the term “secular.”  Some would say a reference to another country’s response muddies the waters for the Australian context. Others may see some clues that create new ground for debate that is less polarised due to clarity of terminology.

The Parable of the Abattoir Wall

This story told by an Aboriginal pastor illustrates well the connection between trusting relationships and truth as described in John 14:15-21, today’s gospel reading.

The Parable of the Abattoir Wall

For many years, the custom in one of the abattoirs had been to paint a coat of whitewash over the bloodstains on its walls.  This was found to be a quicker approach to presenting a clean hygienic image than the laborious task of scrubbing down walls.  However, the time came when the blood-caked stains from years of white-washing began to turn yellow and a foul smelling slime began to seep from underneath the whitewashed interior. The abattoir had no option but to scrape down the years of accumulated blood-stained whitewash and go back to the original wall surface. There came a point in time, in history, when the scraping back exposure of the cover-ups was necessary before the abattoir could do its work.  We believe Australia is now “scraping off the whitewash” and finding its soul.

Pastor Bill Hollingsworth, ‘Message Stick’, Journal of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian Congress of the Uniting Church in Australia, June 1997.

A resource for the Week of Prayer for Reconciliation from NATSIEC

Churches where no wheelchairs go – Eureka Street

Here is a timely reminder for churches old and new:

Churches where no wheelchairs go – Eureka Street.

Universal access should be on the agenda of any community group that pursues compassion and hope as core values – and that surely includes church communities. It would be good for church board/ vestry/ management groups to voluntarily spend an hour or two negotiating their properties in a wheelchair or on a zimmer frame, perhaps with dimmed glasses and earplugs to experience how those physically afflicted experience movement, sight and sound. Then use some creative imagination to make their communities even more inclusive!

When saying and hearing “sorry” is hard work…

2:3 Vexillological symbol The Australian Abori...
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‘We need to forgive and be forgiven, every day, every hour — unceasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.’ Henri Nouwen

Today is Sorry Day, which now commemorates and builds on the 2008 parliamentary apology to Australia’s indigenous people for past policies that resulted in dispossession and fragmentation of a people. It marked a fresh new beginning – possibilities and potential for collaborative problem solving. It was quickly apparent that saying “sorry” wasn’t enough. We still carry the legacy of our shared history and it is a complex matter to deal with. Apology places a necessary burden on both the giver and the receiver. Both have an opportunity to stand back and look at the mess and say “What now?” Old mistakes are prone to be repeated, such as the paternalism of the NT “intervention” or the easy fall-back – fostered reliance on welfare. New initiatives are also born from within indigenous communities and there are many great stories of health and education programs and business enterprises. Giving and receiving apology is hard work – and it is good to have days of focus that invite reflection on how far we’ve come and how far we have yet to travel.

Eureka Street has some relevant articles today: The quote at the head of this post is referred to in The moral challenge of accepting an apology.

Mark Green in, When ‘sorry’ is not enough, leads our reflection further.

Lives of urban Aboriginal women is the title of a film review of Here I am, “a hopeful story in which forgiveness and redemption are attainable goals.”

Teach, don’t preach: how to do religion in schools – ABC Religion & Ethics – Opinion

I’ve made my own arguments along similar lines. Ronald Noone, chaplain at Melbourne Grammar, adds some interesting points that, in my view, have potential to de-polarise the debate and de-wedge the issue.

Teach, don’t preach: how to do religion in schools – ABC Religion & Ethics – Opinion.

School chaplaincy – sacred or secular?

The wedge drives even deeper as the school chaplaincy debate continues.
This morning’s Eureka Street article and the array of comments is illustrative.

There was a time when “religious” and “secular” were complimentary terms, rather than opposed. Some of the rub off of this was seen in a letter in this morning’s West where an opponent to the National School Chaplaincy program opined that even if chaplains did not overtly express their faith their nice and kind character would, nonetheless, unduly influence vulnerable children! Heaven forbid! Perhaps we better screen teachers in state schools whose Christian faith expressed through a “nice and kind” character have the same unfortunate effect.

“Secular” never meant opposed to “religion”. The most succinct distinction I can grab at the moment is from Wikipedia:

Secular and secularity derive from the Latin word saecularis meaning of a generation, belonging to an age. The Christian doctrine that God exists outside time led medieval Western culture to use secular to indicate separation from specifically religious affairs and involvement in temporal ones. This meaning has been extended to mean separation from any religion, regardless of whether it has a similar doctrine.

This does not necessarily imply hostility to God or religion, though some use the term this way (see “secularism”, below); Martin Luther used to speak of “secular work” as a vocation from God for most Christians.

Using this distinction and given that a lot of the work of chaplaincy has to do with negotiating temporal affairs and the day-to-day challenges of their charges, their work can be described in a historical context as “secular” (confined to this era). Of course, because Christians cherish a perspective that transcends the temporal, this work is also “sacred” and therefore approached with the appropriate degree of reflection.

All this shifts the goalposts for the debate and the High Court challenge, however, so I don’t expect to see much public discussion on these finer points.