Ditch the Prayer? We May Need Prayer More than Ever With This Parliament!
If there is a word that substitutes for thought among our political class, it is ‘diversity’.
Diversity is a kind of magical word that is summoned in place of any actual argument as if rhapsodising about it renders the need for evidence, logic or reason completely obsolete.
And so it was that new Australian Senate President Sue Lines said last week that she wanted the long standing tradition of starting each sitting day with the Lord’s Prayer dumped because (insert drum roll here) ‘diversity’.
Oh, and she’s an atheist.
But you’d be wrong to think her desire to change a century old tradition reflecting the cultural heritage of the nation has anything to do with her personal antipathy towards the Christian faith.
No, it’s diversity that’s the problem.
The Labor senator told journalists:
“On the one hand we’ve had almost every parliamentary leader applaud the diversity of the parliament and so if we are genuine about the diversity of the parliament we cannot continue to say a Christian prayer to open the day.”
Right. Well that’s that then. Parliament is diverse and everyone applauds the diversity and if we’re serious about the diversity then the Christian prayer needs to go.
I think, though one cannot be certain, that Ms Lines meant to say not all the parliamentarians were Christians and therefore the Lord’s Prayer was unrepresentative of such a diverse group.
But one cannot be sure that’s what she meant since she was not also campaigning for the even less representative Welcome to Country and Indigenous smoking ceremony to be dumped.
You cannot have it both ways.
You cannot say that because there are only a few Christian parliamentarians the Lord’s Prayer must be dumped, and in the very next breath argue that because there are a few Indigenous parliamentarians a smoking ceremony is essential.
There may well be a number of parliamentarians who do not believe in the Christian God. But there are even less parliamentarians who believe burning leaves outside Parliament House is a way to ward off evil spirits.
Yet we are to believe one form of spirituality is appropriate, and the other is not.
Whatever you think of Christianity or Aboriginal Dreamtime, the new religion is Woke hypocrisy.
Can you imagine the uproar if Ms Lines suggested the Welcome to Country or the smoking ceremony were divisive? And can you imagine the outrage if she added, for good measure, that because she was not Indigenous she should not have to endure them?
She would be derided as a racist and denounced by everybody.
But when she suggested the Lord’s Prayer was divisive and that because she was an atheist she should not have to endure it, everybody nodded approvingly and mumbled, “She’s got a point. If we don’t ditch the Christian prayer where will the diversity be?”
Except that abandoning the Lord’s Prayer does not create diversity, and it is certainly not enlightened. Rather, it pretends that our entire Westminster system of government and common law arose out of nowhere when, in fact, it was largely influenced by the Bible.
And I’m not sure how ignoring almost half the population who stubbornly identify as Christian is a way of creating inclusion.
It was just last week that Prime Minister Albanese, standing outside a church, told journalists:
‘I respect people of faith. That's something I have always done. And something that my Government will do as well.’
The very next day Mr Albanese’s right hand woman in the Senate was telling journalists that abolition of the Lord’s Prayer was ‘certainly on the agenda’.
But remember, this was not about disrespecting people of faith. This was about diversity, as if merely uttering the word erased all contradictions.
More worrying than the Lord’s Prayer is the growing trend among this generation of politicians who enjoy the status and perks of Parliament while doing all they can to debase it.
Greens leader Adam Bandt is embarrassed by the Australian flag.
Mr Bandt’s Greens colleague Senator Lydia Thorpe insists the Parliament of which she is a part is a legacy of the colonial project and therefore illegitimate.
And now Ms Lines, who has been Senate President for five minutes wants to ditch the Lord’s Prayer which has been read in the upper and lower houses since 1901.
It increasingly seems that our political class want only to divide us while imposing their personal fetishes on the nation, all the while casting a spell - with chants of ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ and ‘tolerance’ - that causes logic and reason to melt away.
It may just be that we need prayer more than ever in this new Parliament!
So much diversity, as long as we exclude those pesky followers of Christ.
If you want a glimpse of how it's going for a country that, rather than ditch the parliamentary opening prayer, simply redacted the name of Jesus out of the prayer altogether, look no further than the country of Ardernistan, formerly known as New Zealand.
The move merely underscores and confirms scripture... Jesus is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence... a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.
Seems the evil that tried and failed to silence and destroy the Son of God over 2000 years ago is still alive and well in the heart of man today. They failed then, they're failing still. Burning leaves and all.
Well said James and just pray that the world starts to conjure up some history teachers who know their subject accurately so that this nonsense can be stopped in its tracks by the next hopefully more knowledgeable less woke (read ignorant) generation.