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The public stoush between Paul Keating and Bob Hawke seems little more than soap opera for political junkies. Australian Jesuit Fr Frank Brennan longs for a political morality to guide politicians at times of political upheaval, such as Kevin Rudd's emotional departure from the Labor leadership.
It's hard not to sound misanthropic when discussing population. Conservatives accuse you of favouring abortion, contraception and sterilisation in developing countries. Progressives say you're a cultural imperialist diverting attention from social justice.
Shaun Carney from The Age remarks that governments can be expected to treat refugee policy as 'just politics'. We have seen the consequences for the economy of tolerating 'business as usual'. It would be a pity to prostitute government in the same way.
There is no opting out of the scientific debate. It has to be followed and understood by the layman because power seems to be setting up shop at its heart. The possibility of 'all being rooned' cannot be the sole motivation to live ethically on the earth.
What do footballers who give photographers the bird, comedians who make jokes about sick children, boat owners who bring asylum seekers to Australian shores, cooks who swear, and cricketers who drink have in common?
Thomas Berry (1914-2009), Catholicism's most significant thinker in ecological theology, argued that religion had failed to provide a way of making sense of the cosmos. Christians oppose homicide, but have no morality to deal with the killing of the planet.
With uncharacteristic vehemence, Mr Rudd said people smugglers could rot in hell. This kind of language echoes the tabloid characterisation of people who have done foul deeds as monsters. The Christian view of evil is more complex.
The standard by which the most vocal Catholic Bishops judged Obama was his position on abortion, same sex marriages, and on the use of embryos for research. Obama has done the churches a favour by stealing their clothing.
As individuals, we can make a difference through symbolic actions that embolden governments to take big steps. The financial crisis and the urgent needs of threatened island nations need to be factored into a calculation that ensures burdens fall most heavily on those most able to bear them.
Questions of why Christianity has a personal and social morality of a particular shape demand a more complex account of Christian faith than that provided in Mr Rudd’s emphasis on Jesus’ practice or in Mr Abbott’s emphasis on moral law.
It sounds nice. Until we begin to name names. Adolf Hitler, Jozef Stalin, Pol Pot, Osama Bin Laden. These are monsters. To suggest that God loves them is to sentimentalise God, and to remove any firm basis for morality.
Perhaps the slick advocacy of Al Gore’s pop environmentalism is a way of baptising lives that are already excessive, self-seeking and idolatrous with a sickly green tinge. Rather than change our consumption habits, it makes us feel better about them (like drinking Diet Coke).
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