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John Anderson warns that Australia’s decline is rooted in spiritual and cultural disintegration, calling for a recovery of Christian foundations, social cohesion and national purpose.

John Anderson’s first Substack essay is too important to miss.

The piece introduced Anderson’s new Our Civilisational Moment (OCM) page in April.

Named after Os Guinness’s 2024 book, Anderson’s inaugural OCM essay asserted that the decline of the modern West connects to de-Christianisation.

Essentially, the unravelling of social cohesion is, in part, a consequence of external and internal forces driving Western culture away from the Western Christian tradition.

Saving Australia is spiritual. The mission, or task ahead, is more than just economics or the military.

Australia’s Christian Foundations Are Wilting

According to Anderson, “We must identify the nutrient-rich soil in which our wilting flower once grew. I believe this soil was Christianity, which was once, believe it or not, even very powerful in Australia.”

He then clarified this by stating, “This doesn’t demand that my readers must believe in the truth-claims of Christianity, as I do.

“Perhaps, though, some will come to conclude that the reason Christianity had such a salutary influence on Western civilisation was not merely because it was good and beautiful, but also because it is true.”

Before talking about what I would call the salvific power of the cross behind Australia’s success, Anderson leaned on Guinness’s metaphor of a cut flower, warning that although the beauty and vitality of the flower remain, it’s “rapidly wilting.”

A British success story, Australia, he said, “is still one of the greatest countries in the world. But for how long?”

Five Proposals to Save Australia

Proactive and pragmatic, the former deputy prime minister offered hope in the form of five nation-saving, future-defining proposals.

First on the list was wresting Australia’s foundational freedoms back from diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

Anderson said DEI is not about public safety.

He argued it’s a disguise for a “power-grab by ideological elites to shape a society in their own image, whether Australians want it or not.”

Preserving Australia’s social fabric was second.

“Australia was once a happy, unified, and peaceful nation,” he explained, “But lately Australians have watched their country change rapidly and become fragmented under a reckless immigration system.

“As former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has recently shown in his timely history of Australia, Australia’s cultural foundation and most powerful cultural force until very recently was Anglo-Celtic.

“Arguably, Australia, like Western civilisation in general, is a flower in the process of being cut from its own heritage.

“I submit that Australia needs a revival of interest in and appreciation of our Anglo-Celtic cultural heritage. Crucially, this should be accompanied by an immigration policy that complements Australia’s cultural heritage; not one that effectively undermines it.”

Third on Anderson’s future-defining list was getting the nation’s economy and housing right.

Read this way, home ownership and the realistic prospect of achieving it are foundational to the nation’s survival.

Crucial to this is lower inflation and better pay, which make cost-of-living pressures more manageable.

Resentment about generational wealth was also a problem the government needed to take seriously.

“Just as bad,” Anderson said, “is when they perceive that the older generation has borrowed against them to maintain their own high living standard and financial security, younger generations become resentful as victims of intergenerational theft.”

Fourth and fifth on his OCM list were energy and geopolitics.

As Anderson stated, “The simple fact is that our elites’ renewables obsession is driven by politics and greed, not science or care for the climate.

“Our elites know that they are putting Australians through much pain with this energy revolution, full well knowing that it will actually do nothing to reduce global warming.

“The question is whether Australia will wake up to this disastrous policy or continue down the path of energy and economic self-sabotage.”

Rebuilding Social Cohesion and National Strength

The implication? A key part of stopping Australia’s decline is ditching net zero and moving the national economy away from Communist China.

This includes three security imperatives: improving the defence force, creating and securing better fuel reserves, and cultivating Australia’s longstanding relationship with the United States.

For example, Anderson correctly stated, “We must be realistic and understand that without a strong US alliance, Australia, with its great wealth, finds itself very vulnerable in an increasingly predatory international order in which raw power is increasingly becoming the measure of right.”

Holding fast, Anderson shared some of his April assertions with the Melbourne Catholic Lawyers Association (MCLA) on 8 September.

Melbourne Catholic said his speech was wide-ranging and included references to Os Guinness, Arnold Toynbee and Thomas Sowell.

The report also stated Anderson encouraged Australia’s young and old to work together.

MC reported the former Nationals leader as saying that Australia is a “good country that has lost its way,” at least in part, because the decline of faith had left people less able to acknowledge their limitations, seek forgiveness or draw on a moral framework.

Anderson said, “We are, in the end, spiritual beings. We have souls that need to be given meaning and purpose and direction.”

Speaking on the importance of Christian community to national security, identity and social cohesion, Anderson noted that churches had traditionally confronted people with the need for confession: the recognition that “we haven’t got it all right,” whereas modern culture increasingly encouraged people to see themselves as the final authority over their own lives.

He also reportedly told the MCLA that societal division and decline happened “on our watch” and “it happened because we’ve hollowed out our own culture.”