"The passage has been used to legitimate the separation of church and state, and a kind of differentiation of responsibilities that usually, of late, leaves church and religious voices marginalised."

If religious voices are considered marginalised by the author I'd hate to see how mainstream he wants those voices to be.

Howard, Rudd, Costello, Abbott, Swan, Hockey, Keneally are just a few well known politicians who are quite publicly christain.

Some links that might generate more info

http://annacrabb.wordpress.com/invoking-religion/

http://www.smh.com.au/national/the-voluble-and-the-word-amen-to-that-20091009-gque.html

Hardly marginalised.

R0bert

"In 2011, 22.8 per cent of Catholics versus 34.1 per cent of Anglicans reported holding negative attitudes toward Muslims. This compared to a national figure of 25.5 per cent."

Of course, that could merely mean that if you know your own beliefs are nonsensical and unsupported, you are more likely to sympathise with others in the same position.

I'm sure that UFO theorists feel a good deal of sympathy for Bigfoot researchers, too.

horrible article & typical example of why many lame stream churches have lost it just as badly as the lame stream media & major mistakes political parties.

http://www.rense.com/general32/americ.htm #27 on this list is why "sociologists" pretending to be christians have lost there way, are UNchristian & UNaustralian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIHeBJNFS1g here is a true/correct christian view of muzslimes.

Philo, as a christian i respectfully disagree. charity begins at home.

diver dan, true

McReal, the seperation of church & state was invented by PROTESTANT christians protesting about Anglican & Catholic Popes, Archbishops, etc directly governing as feudal leaders &/or as part of the monarchs cabinet.

As the article does get correct they intended for christian churches to be an important part of society, for christians to be elected to parliament, rather than be appointed automatically.

skeptic, how do you think the PROTESTANT part came into protestant christianity?

they were preaching DISobedience of the corrupt Anglican & Catholic churches as they were then. it was they who got "the enlightenment" & democracy of the ground.

King Hazza, agree completely with some much of what you said.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minaret_controversy_in_Switzerland are you aware of this? almost all of the churches, synagoges, government, political parties advocated AGAINST voting for this referendum, they were all tied up in this "interfaith" peace & love rubbish.

christianity is still quite strong in Switzerland many proletariat christians ignored their preachers who told them NOT to support the referendum.

different churches have been right & wrong on the other issues you mentioned. corruption is the real problem with our churches, same as some of our political parties.

I welcome your article Mr Bouma, which is as critical of our institutional God as it is of Caesar. My first thought is that we could easily replace God with a set of ethics that transcended sectarianism. Mainstream Christianity these days is synonymous with conservatism, intolerance and affluence, or at least complacency, as your statistic indicates, and according to true Protestant (re)form, I gather that that's what you're about addressing.
We don't need a separation of church (ethics) and state, indeed they ought to be irrevocably cloven, we just need to purge the cronyism. What we need is a set of reflexive ethics that church "and" state are beholden to, regardless of party or denomination.

Laws are a definition between Right and Wrong and attach consequence to both.

Right and Wrong are always, and will always be, Right or Wrong, no matter how popular or followed they may be.

How do we know what is Right and Wrong?

By all means have an opinion Gary but don't pervert and twist Scripture to justify your view. The number of people who have drowned since the Brown/Rudd/Gilard Government welcome mat was laid out is the true travisty of justice. It is an inconvenient truth you fail to face up to. Don't forget also all the refugess who can't afford people smugglers. I think Jesus heart might be with them somehow.