What is this enttity called the "church"? There are only human beings who act both individually and collectively.
The author conveniently forgets that the institutional "church" has been an integral player in the politics of worldly power ever since the "church" was coopted by the Roman State.
It is only fairly recently that the INEVITABLE tyranny of the "church" was curtailed at least in some western countries. This being a response to the "religious" inspired slaughters of post Reformation Europe. The "church" still wields enormous power in some countries--Poland is an example.
To claim that "christians" are aliens in the modern world of secular politics is pure humbug.
The recent circus involving the funeral of the late pope and the installation of the current one was a brazen celebration/declaration of IMPERIAL POWER---Constantine lives!
There is an influential body of "righteous" right wing christians that wants to turn the USA into a theocratic state---the Dominionists.

I don't know why we trust religious people to run the country. I have no problem with people believing in their magical fairy stories, but those people would be my last choice for doing, you know, grown up things like making important decisions and so on.

I'd love to see an athiest prime minister one day. Imagine it...you breath deeper, the air tastes better, look outside...beautiful rays of sunlight pour through the autumn folliage, birds chirping..you lean back and smile...you even feel you bowels loosen up a bit...the world just got a little better, there's a rational person in power. Someone able to tell the difference between reality and fantasy...what a relief..

Course it won't happen, not in my lifetime anyway. Because the religious would never accept a non-religious person, we're instead forced to accept religious people. And that is the definition of backwards.

Two more points. Methinks that the author of this essay is full of self-serving delusions---all wrapped up in the usual pious language of course.

He uses the phras "allegiance to the triune god"--what triune god?
The triune "god" is a self-serving cultural and political construct--perculiar to the would be world conquering political "religion" called christianity.
It is certainly not an idea shared by the overwhelming majority of persons on this planet who have some kind of non christian religious affiliation.

He also uses the phrase: "if the church is to succeed in its mandate to work towards establishing a new kingdom"--- Again this is pure self serving humbug wrapped up in the language of seeming piety.

What mandate? Who's mandate?

Again this is the language of a would be world-conquering POLITICAL "religion"--- we are going to convert you to become like us because our "god" has told us to do so.

I wonder if Mr Rudds religion has caused him to face the truths he has opposed for a decade. I mean now he supports the sale of Telstra and the backing of Private schools. All we need now is for him to change his mind on Iraq (which if in power he will) and then you won't know if it is Liberal or Labour in power!

The unavoidable problem lies in the PLUS. Whether it be Labor + Christianity or Liberal + Atheism or Greens + neo-paganism or Democrats + existentialism, we cannot escape the complex, multifaceted aspects of our lives being influenced by a multitude of "isms". No person lives in a vacuum and no political perspective or philosophy of living is pure and unadulterated by a PLUS or, more accurately, several pluses. So Rudd is correct in refusing to allow that the Liberal Party equates with Christendom and the author is correct in calling Christians to not easily align with any particular party. Perhaps a Christian response to the political game is to not withdraw from the game but to deliberately play different roles: at various times a player, an umpire, a spectator, a medic, a coach... If a Christian is firstly one who seeks to live by the Way of Jesus Christ, it will take humility for a Christian person to recognise that that goal will never be fully realised because of the complex pluses that impact life. But let's not go to the extremes of asserting either that Christians are necessarily correct in their views or that they have no right to be part of the game. The moderating position taken by the author, that abandoning imperialistic Christendom for a role of speaking and serving prophetically from the margins, is more in keeping with the values lived out by the founder of the Christian faith.

Thank you Stephen – a balanced and thought-provoking piece.

Looking at some of the comments here, I think the church is now pretty close to being “resident aliens” whether it likes it or not!

Discerning the line between appropriate social and political engagement and retaining our commitment to our primary function and mission is a crucial issue for today’s church. I suspect Hauerwas goes too far towards emphasising separation and distinctness of the church. We are here to be God’s servants to the world, not just to each other. But both Abbot and Rudd show how easy it is to confuse God’s agenda with our personal political convictions.

Dank – you make some good points. I suspect the influences here are not all one way. The values and ethics of western political worldviews such as socialism, social democracy, environmentalism, liberalism, conservatism etc have bee shaped and defined in part by their historical backdrop of Christendom. They are at least in part the church’s grandchildren, and I suspect we can never completely disown them.

"I don't know why we trust religious people to run the country. I have no problem with people believing in their magical fairy stories, but those people would be my last choice for doing, you know, grown up things like making important decisions and so on.

I'd love to see an athiest prime minister one day. Imagine it...you breath deeper, the air tastes better, look outside...beautiful rays of sunlight pour through the autumn folliage, birds chirping..you lean back and smile...you even feel you bowels loosen up a bit...the world just got a little better, there's a rational person in power. Someone able to tell the difference between reality and fantasy...what a relief.."
QFT :D

Yeah funny post by spendocrat...
Though somehow i doubt an atheist prime minister would have the "god-like" powers to be able to change the weather and give the air a nice "taste" and help you with your bowel problems. And anyway, if he did have these powers and he did know the difference between fantasy and reality, then i'm sure he would make it rain more in Autumn, not get sunnier, cause in case you haven't noticed we need a bit more water at the moment.

Being the bicentennial weekend of the abolition of slave trade, it is interesting to note that William Lamb - Lord Melbourne (1779–1848), who later became a UK Prime Minister and very pro- slave trading reflected: ‘Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade public life.

It works both ways, Stanners. It was the profoundly religious William Wilberforce whose religion invaded public life and became a powerful force in the anti-slavery movement. It is not religion in itself that is good or bad, but how religion is interpreted and applied in personal, societal and political spheres.

Just imagine the outpouring if a Muslim leader or peace loving Taoist of Asian background sought to become the Prime Minister, which I might add, is entirely possible in our wonderful democracy??!!

Had Jesus walked this earth in contemporary Australia He would have been legally obligated to vote. I speculate for whom?? I suspect a 'donkey' vote might be applicable. However, to consider this hypothetical is to draft Stephen's thought provoking article in to the present. Politically, there are no such positions as 'religious right', 'pious left' or 'Christian centrist', political parties by sheer dint of the societal Diaspora, will contain an array of social, emotional and spiritual adherents, reflective of main stream society itself.
So, the party political mechanisms seek to embrace the broad range of groups within the electorate and the current flavour group is 'Christians'.

The central problem with the cult of Christianity is that it is exclusionary and persecutory. At its core it regards immorality as moral and anti values as values, much of this based on a rehash of old hebrew mythology, fictional characters such as Jesus and idols and fetishes of superstition such as god, miracles and the power of occult magic such as prayer. The primacy of the church is to gain power over people, as an authority justified by a god that does not exist but a construct of deceit and often in historical and archeological terms pure lies. It also makes claims of wisdom it does not hold as theology is its wisdom and theology is myth focus so the church holds pure ignorance rather than wisdom at best. Power over others by the authority of god, god being a delusion of paranoid superstition.

The fact that Rudd and Abbot have let their personal superstition interfere with Australian politics is testamony they are not fit for the job.
Religion is bigotry and Australia is a democracy. Rudd and Abbott have betrayed the Australian people by representing their superstition rather than doing their job and representing the Australian people. Australia is desperate for good people to enter politics to put an end this sort of corruption and stop the rot to democracy. Australia has plunged into a crisis and is headed toward disaster because of the infiltration of the religious into our democracy. We need good people to change our laws to see to it that forces of anti-democracy that put the superstitious belief in a god before the nation are sacked to let real Australians get on with the job.

Firstly my dear West, the life and times of Jesus Christ were faithfully recorded and well documented by ancient non-Christian historians. Whether you can accept that or not is a personal choice. What you are advocating is getting rid of people who have faith and aspire to political office. Hardly democratic is it? People have committed atrocious crimes in the name of religion (but obviously not truly adherents to the religion they profess) and so have people who have no religion.

Christians in public office are watched and put under the microscope, and the media and others ensure that every little flaw will be illuminated and magnified and reported broadly. At least with Christians in politics there is a known moral and ethical code to which they aspire that allows most of us to recognize and know what they stand for. If they stuff it up they know the consequences – front page news! For others who do not hold to these known tenets, I am afraid I have no idea what code they adhere to even if they are good people.

Stephen is right, religion doesn’t belong to a party. I think it is quite destructive to Christianity to see politicians polarizing the Christian vote. The Church should be free to be a booming voice on the sidelines, to nudge consciences and to advocate for justice for all.

Stanners who recorded the life of Jesus? Nobody wrote about Jesus during the period he allegedly existed. There are no records of Jesus at all. The only writings about Jesus come from later fictional works some of which were decided to be included in the new testament.

Would we want politicians who worshipped Harry Potter or Mr Spock? A Prime Minister or any minister who consulted the theology of Lord of the Rings? Policy based on the expectation that Darth Vader will return for an apocolyptic space battle? We would consider them unfit for their involvement in the utterly ridiculous. Yet the bible is just as ridiculous as is the notion of god, no less crazy than believing in Snow White or scientology.

Where there is a strong commitment to 'spirituality' in politics there is incompetence. The current federal cabinet is a glowing example of this, the worst ministers all coincedently wear their superstitions on their sleeve. The job doers have never mentioned their beliefs.

As a baby boomer, who remembers only too well our little mid victorian town being torn apart by religious politics in the form of the labor party split of the late 50's; I cannot believe that our christian bretheran are at again. Our politicians piously condemn the extremism in Islam and completely ignore, the same development coming from christianity. If they want to spend their spare time at singalongs at Hillview, good luck to them but keep it out of the job that we the taxpayers, pay you to do!