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!