The conservative government of John Howard is proposing to offer $20,000 to any school to employ a "religious person" as a chaplain for students. This isn't blurring the line of separation between church and state, he says. It's just "common sense". Right.
[Updated, so moved up to the top]
I wonder how well it would go if an unbeliever tried to apply for this funding? How would Howard feel about my being employed to give counsel to young kids, say, between 12 and 16, on how to live without requiring religion as a prop to cope with social pressures? If I would fail, and let's face it, I would, on what grounds does the federal government of a secular state defend putting religious opinion into state education?
Either there is no bias in funding religions, which is what a secular state is all about, and you have to include the areligious, or there is, and this is just another sign that Howard and his religious allies (who in this case would include the religious members of the opposition, of whom there are a few) is trying to tie social cohesion with a particular religious tradition.
Funding for school counsellors, who are trained in helping troubled kids, is parlous. So why not just top up that funding for the real professionals, instead of the well meaning amateurs who will inevitably press their religious views on impressionable school children? There can be only two possible answers. One is that it is a failure of understanding. Howard, like so many other religious people who are in the majority, fail to see religion as a voluntary choice, but rather as a means to an end (social cohesion; this is indicated by his comments about Sheik Hilaly's comments about women as meat - it's not wrong that a religion says this; it's wrong because it's "un-Australian", whatever the hell that means. Apparently to be Australian, you need to know about cricket, so I'm expecting deportation any day now).
The other is that this is, like the "faith-based initiatives" of the Bush Administration, a cynical attempt to pander to the religious conservative political movements of evangelicals like Family First, which Treasurer Costello has previously shown support for by attending its founding church, Hillsong. These two are not exclusive. The use by conservatives of religion as a political tool even while believing in the rightness of the use of religion is an old tradition (goes back to Burke), and an Australian tradition as well.
I am seeing the beginnings of an exclusion of the areligious in Australian affairs. We are not yet at the point America is, where an atheist can't get elected, but we are seeing the increasing influence of religious bodies in public affairs. And it's wrong. Church is voluntary, but the state is not, and education should be a distinct mission from the inculcation of attitudes to moral issues and faith. The "assimilation test" proposed to force immigrants to accept "Australian values" will end up being a political tool based on arbitrary standards, just as the "language test" once used by governments to keep Australia "white" once was. We need to nip this in the bud immediately. Whether it is cynical or heartfelt, it's a tool for marginalising citizens and residents, and it won't stop at Muslim radicals or atheists. Politicians should never be allowed to determine what is and what is not acceptable behaviour in their constituents; they should follow the community, and protect all members of it.
Late note: A commenter here noted that the choice of the chaplain's religion will be overly complex at diverse schools. The net result will be that denominational schools will end up with the lion's share of this funding. In effect, it will become a grant to religious schools, something the PM has favoured before. It's a cheat. An end run around public disapproval of religious schools getting disproportionate funding.
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I am a bit surprised you would quote the Daily Telegraph for your source, though I completely agree with your assessment. It's rare in Australia to have the Church & State debate arise, and it's been my experience that most Australians - unless proselytising - keep their views private (granted my experience is mainly in Sydney). I think it's remarkable that the quote from Prime Minister Howard indicates that we are a secular nation because of an *absence* of an established religion, rather than a variety of beliefs joined together in a deliberately secular state.
In another publication (The Australian),
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20667001-601,00.html
it mentions a pertinent concern about this new program: Australian Primary Principals Association president Leonie Trimper warned there could be problems in implementation, "Where are (chaplains) going to come from? Who is going to train them?" she asked. "Just because you have religious knowledge does not mean you are going to make a good counsellor." This follows up on recent initiatives to have religious-biased counselling for women seeking abortion and couples wishing to be married (hetero only, of course!). Why do we need religion in schools when there is are already a plethora of institutions in every local district dedicated to all manner of beliefs should a person choose to attend?
And since the "non-mainstream" sects (including every other religion such as all Asian religions and presumably any Orthodox sects) will not be invited to the program, then Peter Costello's support for the Hillsong sect seems to be ignored as well! It appears only "proper" religions need apply, heretics be damned.
I only used the Daily Telegraph because it came up first on a Google News search. I of course have been following this on the radio etc. And Hillsong, being an Assemblies of God church, is considered mainstream by our pollies, though I think they're little better than a serious cult.
Maybe I should start voting in the Australian elections - I have not done so out of the principle, that people who doesn't live in a country, and have no real plans on starting living there, really shouldn't try to decide who rules there. However, it seems like Australia needs as many Atheist votes as possible.
We are not yet at the point America is, where an atheist can't get elected, but we are seeing the increasing influence of religious bodies in public affairs.
I'm starting to worry that Britain may be hitting the same trend. The question then becomes: what's causing this, and how do we kill it?
Maybe I should start voting in the Australian elections - I have not done so out of the principle, that people who doesn't live in a country, and have no real plans on starting living there, really shouldn't try to decide who rules there. However, it seems like Australia needs as many Atheist votes as possible.
If you were a resident / citizen, you would HAVE to vote, no ifs or buts. Mandatory democracy. Kinda ironic isnt it.
Look, the main problem with our (Australias) political system is there is no "Liberal" party, in the sense of the word "liberal", but rather two conservative parties, one of who is out there for the rich, and one who is out there for the workers.
Growing up, I was raised a Christian in a protestant denomination, but ironically the people who sparked my interests in science and technology, and my eventual shunning of religion where the leaders of the church I was forced to attend.
However, my so called saviour from this forced religion was the school system, where there was no religion, and no promise of religion. I have no problem with religion being taught to my children, as long as it is in a historical context, and not a spiritual one. The second state schools enlist a chaplain on to their staff, this religion free sanctuary will cease to exist to the peril of the well being of school students. If I wanted my kids exposed to religion at school, I would send them to a religious school.
What worries me more than the proposed chaplaincy is the fact that Costello and other government officials stated that they would have no objections to Intelligent Design being taught in schools along side evolution. This is utterly absurd.
And this is also why I always vote greens. I dont agree with the greens politics, but theyre better than the other choices.
What is causing this resurgence of religious hegemony is, in my view, twofold. One is that modernism has become objectionable. The idea that science would solve our problems by reasonable means has been discredited in the eyes of many people. Hence they no longer trust science, which demagogues take advantage of.
The other is that the ideals of secularism have been taken for granted and not defended. Hence the religionists have been able to subvert those ideals by reframing the whole debate.
The only way to deal with this is to reinforce the role (and limitations) of science in public education and debates, and to defend vociferously the absolute necessity of secular democracy.
Partly right. As a non-resident citizen, I am not required to vote.
Sounds like the camel's got his nose in your tent....
That's pretty crazy. Of course, I'm sure the Australian government will do the right thing and hire qualified Muslim, Hindu, and scientologist chaplins if they are more qualified. (Yeah, right.) I'm sure they'll do exactly what the US' "office of faith based initiatives" did: "When I saw one of those non-Christian groups in the set I was reviewing, I just stopped looking at them and gave them a zero ... a lot of us did." (http://www.streetprophets.com/storyonly/2006/10/12/105822/14)
I hope Australia can manage to realize the value of strict secularism in government. I may need a place to flee to some day.
Never one to turn down a suggestive typo:
scientologist chaplins
....I get this image of Tom Cruise and John Travolta wearing old-fashioned baggy black suits, bowler hats and sporting toothbrush moustaches.
I have been extremely disappointed with the political scene in Australia since the 2000 election. The Labor party has completely lost their way, and more and more shifts towards the right. You're right, they were never a 'lower case l' liberal party, but they now seem to be right of centre. I was hoping that Julia Gillard or even Peter Garrett would take over from Beazley this year, but it seems we're doomed to have the same poor choice in 2007. (Not that I actually get any say on who the PM is, as I live in Fraser - Bob McMullan). I too now vote Greens 1st, Independents 2nd and Labor 3rd, especially in the Senate.
It is completely unbelievable that Labor's position would be to actually support this proposal. That something like this has come completely out of the blue and gets immediate support from Labor is an indication of how weak the liberal side of politics has become.
Hello brothers and sisters
Ah, it's easy to scoff...
The Australian Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (http://noodlynation.blogspot.com) welcomes the government's announcement, and we are preparing to deploy Pastafarian chaplains in Australian schools.
For further details, see: http://noodlynation.blogspot.com/2006/10/congratulations-chaplains-in-s….
As we noted in our letter to Minister Julie Bishop: "When it comes to our schools, and indeed the Australian community as a whole, we humbly pledge to put the 'pasta' back into 'pastoral care'."
RAmen
Pastor Len
FSM Australia
c/- Durum Cathedral
It is completely unbelievable that Labor's position would be to actually support this proposal. That something like this has come completely out of the blue and gets immediate support from Labor is an indication of how weak the liberal side of politics has become.
Labor's motivation for not opposing it is that politically they have no choice. This is wedge politics from Howard and the only way to avoid the wedge is to run dead. There is nothing for the ALP to gain by opposing it, politically. They oppose it and the Govt gets to call them anti-values, The Australian will no doubt run an editorial to that effect.
Also if they oppose it, it prolongs the story. The last thing the ALP wants to be talking about is bloody chaplains in schools, they want to spend the few remaining weeks before everyone switches off completely over summer hammering on Iraq, interest rates, industrial relations, AWB, etc etc. Best for them to murmur agreement and then get back to moving the agenda to its own issues.