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Barnaby Joyce’s New Gospel is no gospel at all. It’s just a lazy way of avoiding an honest discussion of Islam.

Barnaby Joyce has warned against fundamentalism in all religions, including Christianity.

His intervention followed One Nation leader Pauline Hanson musing aloud on Sky News about whether a Muslim can be said to be a good person while following the Koran — a question that prompted immediate condemnation from figures across the political spectrum, from Matt Canavan to the Ayatollah. Sorry, Albanese.

Easy mistake.

Barnaby’s Cultural Test for Faith

In the rush to distance himself from Hanson, Barnaby unveiled what might fairly be described as his own theological framework for a modern Australia:

“I’ve got no problem if you don’t have a literal following of your religion and you concur with the Australian culture.”

In other words: believe whatever you like about God so long as it lines up neatly with whatever they’re saying at the ARIA Awards.

You can see the problem.

No culture is perfect, which means the Word of God and Australian culture are bound to clash eventually.

Indeed, that’s sort of the point of having a Word of God.

No serious religious person thinks divine instruction exists primarily to affirm whatever HR departments were going to do anyway.

Barnaby asks for an impossible thing:

If the Bible says abortion is murder, but Australian culture says abortion is healthcare, should a Christian defer to scripture or to a Greens policy document?

If Christianity teaches that humanity is created male and female, but Australian culture insists gender is a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, should believers adjust their theology to better reflect the Mardi Gras float line-up?

The Fear of “Fundamentalism” Since 9/11

Bishop Barnaby continued:

“A person who leaves behind sections of their religion in the literal form which is incompatible with Australian culture, (that) is something that I can definitely find space with.

“But if you have a literal following of your religion, and your religion in this literal following asks you to do things that are anathema to Australian culture, then I can’t concur with that.”

How reassuring.

After all, Christianity is famous for encouraging adherents to discard any awkward bits that might upset the national vibe.

“Love your enemies” can stay.

“Repent” might need a working group.

Anything involving sexuality should probably be referred to an inclusivity panel.

Religion, by definition, proposes a set of uncompromising beliefs. Asking believers to jettison whatever the culture deems uncool is really just asking them not to be religious at all – which is fine, so long as we’re honest enough to say that’s what’s being requested.

This aversion towards religious people who actually believe their religion – as opposed to those whose faith is really just secularism under a cloak of respectable spirituality – began the moment Islamic jihadists crashed passenger jets into the World Trade Centre.

Suddenly, religion per se — rather than Islam itself — was seen as the greatest threat to social cohesion.

Such a view is not without merit. Religion encourages adherents to believe their view of the world is right and, by implication, that all opposing views are wrong.

Such exclusive claims make it easy to disparage the “other”.

If others are wrong about the big issues of life, then it makes sense to separate yourself from them. And once we have separated ourselves from the “other”, it is easy to stereotype them and then to oppress them and ultimately to commit violence against them.

What makes religion particularly dangerous is that we may do all of this with a sense of self-righteousness.

If we are on the side of God, then who are they to tell me I ought not oppress them? Who are they at all?

It’s not for nothing that Islamic terrorists scream “God is great” as they behead those they suppose to be enemies of God.

Secularism’s Own Exclusive Truth Claims

For a while, we believed the problem of religion would fade as economic prosperity and technological advancement made belief in God redundant.

Who needs God when Google is the source of all knowledge, and a meeting of bureaucrats in Paris can decide global temperatures?

But the world is becoming more religious, not less.

Even in the Western world, where the number of professing Christians is declining, we are importing religion via our immigration programs.

Barnaby’s solution is to neuter religion by insisting people believe whatever they want so long as it’s only the bits everyone already agrees with. Which would be more persuasive if secular doctrine itself showed even the faintest flexibility.

The State will not allow you to bow your head in silent prayer within 150 metres of a New South Wales abortion clinic.

The State will not allow you to pray for a gender-confused person to accept their biology in Victoria without risking fines large enough to make medieval indulgences look like Afterpay.

And Barnaby thinks religious fundamentalism is the problem?

What I’m trying to say is that it is foolish to insist that people must not make exclusive truth claims since the very insistence itself is an exclusive truth claim.

Those wanting to banish religion from the public square because religion encourages exclusive and often unpopular views are guilty of the very thing they deplore and are every bit as dangerous.

Since we all hold worldviews we believe to be true, the question is not how do we get rid of those who claim to be the holders of truth, but rather, which set of exclusive truth claims is most likely to create a harmonious society?

Christianity’s Exclusive Claims — and Inclusive Outcomes

History suggests that Christianity’s supposedly dangerous claims – now being gently escorted from the public square – have been rather good at producing the inclusive societies progressives say they want.

A 2018 report by independent human rights watchdog Freedom House rated nations according to the individual liberties citizens enjoyed. Of the 20 freest nations, 19 had or continued to enjoy Christian majorities.

This is not an accident. Nor is it an accident that the cry for inclusivity is rising, not from Islamic or Eastern nations, but from the West which grew out of a Christian tradition. The point being missed in the debate about inclusivity is that Christianity’s claims are not the obstacle to inclusion but the instigator of it.

Christianity’s foremost claim is that Jesus Christ alone is divine. We might expect this view to make Christians dangerous. The idea that their founder – unlike Muhammad, or Buddha or Krishna — is God, could lead to arrogance and the oppression of those who think differently. But if Jesus is God in flesh, what does the ultimate human look like?

The ultimate person, according to the Christian faith, looks like a man who blesses those who curse him, forgives those who injure him and lays down his life for those who oppose him.

The claim that Jesus is God should produce, in all who believe, a love for and willingness to serve all who do not.

The second bold claim of Christianity is that men cannot earn God’s favour; they must instead receive forgiveness as a gift.

This should produce a humility in believers that leads them to expect those who do not believe as they do may well in fact be better people than they are. If the only prerequisite for becoming a Christian is admitting you are not a good person, there is no room for moral vanity or virtue-signalling.

The problem of religion is not solved by eradicating religion, since that only serves to replace one set of exclusive beliefs with another. And if the twentieth century taught us anything, it was that godless regimes are even more oppressive than the religious ones they replace.

The things that are exclusive about Christianity are the very things that make it the idea most likely to produce the inclusive society the left says they want.

Barnaby’s New Gospel asks believers to render unto Caesar whatever Caesar thinks this week.

All because we’re too afraid to say that Islam will not produce a kind, tolerant, inclusive society.

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Republished thanks to The James Macpherson Report. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.