Render Unto Caesar … Whatever Caesar Thinks This Week
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.
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 …
