SPEECH: BRISBANE MAYORAL BREAKFAST

Jim Wallace
Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby

18th March 2010

Your worship the Lord Mayor

Councillors
The Hon Margaret Keech MP
Dr Mark Robinson MP
Archbishop Bathesby
Rt Rev Jonathan Holland
Pastor Wayne Alcorn –
Church and Christian Leaders

Ladies and Gentlemen

In January 2009 Trooper Mark Donaldson was awarded a Victoria Cross for valour, for courage, in operations in Afghanistan in September 2008.

He had returned, under fire, in a fighting withdrawal to pick up a wounded coalition force interpreter and bring him back to safety. It was indeed, despite being able to be stated simply in so few words, an action of supreme courage, and places him, as long as this country exists, alongside another 96 Australians whose courage we honour in the Hall of Valour in the Australian War
Memorial.

Their stories, placed significantly at the very centre of the Memorials exhibits, – testify I believe, to the indispensable role of courage in winning battles and especially turning them against incredible odds.

On Australian Day this year we made Trooper Donaldson the Young Australian of the Year because we honour courage, we value it.
But as we do with so much else today, have we made it a spectator sport?

While I haven’t experienced the battlefield in the intimacy that Mark Donaldson did that day, I think I have, through being in the middle of the war in Lebanon with UN forces, visits to Rwanda and Somalia during those conflicts, and studying war for some thirty years – a very reasonable appreciation of what makes for courage in those circumstances.

There is little doubt to me that it is the result of a series of decisions – often made quickly, but none the less involving the weighing of consequences – on the battlefield horrific personal consequences.

Being permanently maimed or wounded are horrific consequences. Being killed, especially for a married man with a family is a horrific consequence.

But as you read not just Mark Donaldson’s citation, but also others of our VC winners, you realise that courage, the real meaning of courage, was to do what was necessary despite the cost.

Importantly in every instance nobody would have condemned them for taking the soft option – for not acting.

After all the interpreter had been unlucky, he bought it, that’s bad luck, these things happen in war, the group was now back withdrawing, in reasonable order and needed to look after itself. It already had so many casualties from the ambush it ran into, that there was no room for able bodied men in the armoured vehicles.

Nobody would have criticised inaction, when you calculated the consequences – but we rewarded courage. We honoured courage.
But have we made it a spectator sport – is the Church and are individual Christians largely spectators in the cultural battle that so clearly confronts us on a daily basis.

More confronting, do we not just shun courage, but exhibit cowardice? Do we not only make decisions not to act, but fail to stay and provide cover for our Trooper Donaldson’s as they exercise their courage . I have no doubt essential to Donaldson’s not being killed that day, and being able to save the life of the interpreter was the covering fire, the support of his mates.

Over two days last month the Qld Parliament debated in what was called a conscience vote, whether we should defy God’s created order, nature, commonsense and sensibility, but if none of that moved us – the undisputable right of children to a mother and father by reducing them to the status of pets – able to be procured by unnatural intervention by even a single man. For no other reason than he wants one.

In the process we set off to create another “stolen generation” – stolen from the mother whose egg must be procured to create him or her, stolen from the mother who carries him or her for nine months, who as we know, indisputably, naturally and as God intended will bond with that child – only to relinquish it – what we might consider to do to things we now do to babies. We relinquish them – relinquish them to an unnatural environment that defies biology, and certainly defies God.

There were some signs of courage in this great step backwards for civil society – for the Christian nature of our society.

The LNP decided as a matter of principle that the same-sex and singles access to surrogacy should be opposed and has committed to remove it if elected. That took courage in the face of the quite vitriolic attacks that they endured on the floor of Parliament for that decision.

But the Victoria Cross for political valour belongs to two very brave people who crossed the floor – who, like Donaldson and many before him when courage was called for, found it meant leaving the security of colleagues, even perhaps forsaking it, and stepped out across what was as morally as long a crossing of the floor, as Donaldson’s 80m dash to his colleague under fire was physically
long, and did what was right. Who because of their faith edified Christ, rather than seeking the favour of man.

I speak of course of the Hon Margaret Keech, and from my point of view – the equally honourable Michael Choi.

What made their actions even more courageous was the lack of covering fire they received.

I’d be pretty confident that Donaldson’s heroic act only resulted in the successful extraction of the interpreter because his mates stayed with him by providing covering fire – but we the church provided withering fire at best to these two heroes. Christian politicians trying to convince a party and individual MPs that this atrocious law didn’t have the support of the community, which it didn’t - and certainly not the church community. But where was the evidence of that view, the support was muted and sporadic, if at all.

I started off by saying that we have made courage a spectator sport – it wasn’t always like that for the church.

The early church distinguished itself by its faith and courage in standing against what was morally wrong.

Wilberforce’s fight against slavery was as much a test of courage, as it was a test of faith.

Martin Luther King’s fight against segregation and for civil rights, was equally demanding of courage, and eventually he died for it.

And of course there was Christ.

I heard a prominent Christian leader say recently that we had to ensure that in what the church did publicly, it wasn’t perceived negatively in the community.

I have great sympathy for that - we all love to be loved.

But where does this sit with the injunction we all know well from Romans, that we are not to allow ourselves to be conformed to the pattern of this world.

If the pattern of this world is bad, then Christians, whether Churchmen or women of lay, must oppose it – must be negative toward it.
If the perception we are trying to avoid is a wrong perception, if truth is with us, then we must allow ourselves to be viewed negatively.

There is no courage to be demonstrated in staying quiet for fear of being seen to be negative.

So negatively was Christ viewed that they yelled in chorus: “Crucify Him.”

And there is so much about this world that is wrong and getting worse:

• Among children alone:
  
  o we have 40mil orphaned by AIDS in the world
  o 100m subjected to sexual abuse
  o 1.2mil trafficked for sexual exploitation,
  o 300k as child soldiers
  
  
• There are 30m people in slavery, mainly women and children
  
  
• The Australian Research Alliance on Children and Youth has found
  recently that a child born in Australia today a has a 22% chance of having
  a mental health problem by the age of 16 and a 25% chance of being
  abused by the same age.

Surely Christians in the church, in public, have to speak out against the things that cause, these and the many other things that appal us. Not just speak out against the issues themselves, but what causes them.

What is it in our society that causes the AIDS, that leaves 40 milion children orphaned throughout the world.

What is it in our acceptance of atrocious standards on the internet and other media, and in advertising, that creates an appetite for sexual abuse of children at the rates I’ve given, and sees 1.2m trafficked for sex, and why isn’t the church a voice out there, a stronger voice, a braver voice condemning it, condemning the causes?

We know that a great number of the problems that befall children in our society are the result of unstable families, dysfunctional families and we see the result particularly in the children in our homeless figures.

The Jubilee Centre, a very respected Christian research centre in the UK has recently published findings of research that show that married couples are 15 times more likely to be together when their children reach 16 yrs of age than those who are simply cohabitating when they have children.

15 more times, is not a minor factor of difference, its huge – but have we the church carried this truth into government, have we had these sort of facts of marriage so prominent, that they become considerations in debates like that had here earlier this month – I doubt it.

We are extremely blessed in this country to have two men of faith in leadership of both the Federal Govt and Federal Opposition. But of course with that has come the constant ridicule of their right to bring their faith into public life. An absolute nonsense when it’s totally accepted that everyone else brings their worldview into public life and has it inform their decisions.

But where is the church in taking the proponents of this nonsense to task?

Surely it is one of the most basic issues in public policy on which the church should make itself heard and support and encourage those such as Mr Rudd and Mr Abbott to reflect their faith in what they do in public life.

I had the great privilege of serving with SAS soldiers - the Mark Donaldsons of this world - for some 11 and a half years including 3 years commanding the SAS Regt.

I know that the courage shown by Mark Donaldson that day was not just a factor of what is doubtlessly an incredible personal character. But will also have been formed by the Regiment’s culture, a culture that demands courage and nurtures it in all it does, it’s given force and authority by leaders at every level who provide example in courage. These twin factors of culture and example through leadership, create an expectation of courage, that delivers when the pressures on, as it did in September 2008.

Unfortunately I think we undervalue the importance of leadership as a catalyst for courage – but unless its modelled, by all leaders in any organisation, there won’t be an expectation of it and ultimately it will be lost.

If something is not seen, experienced, then eventually it’s lost, new generations can’t visualise it or certainly not its full potential or reality.

Anyone who lived in the Eastern block understands how impossible it was for people who had been denied any experience of the West , any communication with it to even conceptualise what it was like.

I met an East German girl who had migrated after 27 years to the West when the wall was up and was simply amazed at what she saw, even the lights and advertising – she had nothing with which to compare it. She had no reference point from which to compare or conceptualise it.

And the same is true if positive characteristics are not modelled in society - they will be lost.

And there can be no doubt that the pressure is on in our world today. It’s pressure that demands that the church and other good men and women make a stand in the face of very selfish ideological and commercial agendas that have been dressed up to appear reasonable, when any honest assessment shows they are not.

Churchill said looking back on the Second World War:

“And let us remember when all these things are said and done, that one great fact, the greatest fact, remains supreme and unassailable. It is this. There are in this world things that are true and things that are false; there are ways that are right and ways that are wrong; there are men good and men bad. And on one side or the other we must take our stand, one or the other we must serve.”

I’m sorry that this talk has not contained much of entertainment, but to be honest the lack of courage of the church of late has driven humour from me.

We are facing dark issues. Courage is a decision, it’s a decision to stand for what’s right and true and alas, even to oppose what’s wrong and false. And it is a decision I hope that the Church will make quickly, so it’s no longer a spectator to this important virtue – courage.