Christian commentator Stephen McAlpine believes the booing of Welcome to Country ceremonies at Anzac Day services that we saw last Saturday will continue unless there are changes.
In an interview with Vision Radio he explained his view on what’s causing these divisions and how they can be healed:
“One of the things I would say is that it feels like at both sides of the political extremes, the gloves are off, so if booing happens at your “sacred event,” it feels like a clash of sacred ideas on the one event and that’s probably what the issue was.”
“That’s an interesting word to describe a very secular event — Anzac Day — and Australia’s a very secular place at many levels, but it has this “sacred event.”
WHAT’S LED TO ANZAC WELCOME TO COUNTRY DIVISIONS?
“Many people are going: Well, it seems obvious that we have a Welcome to Country because it’s welcoming you to this part of the land. It’s an invitation.“
“Other people have seen that as transgressive stepping onto another sacred issue.”
“I think what you’ve seen is over the last 8 to 10 years, you’ve had quite disruptive, radical movements which have been quite transgressive towards conservative positions.”
“So when someone comes to speak on a campus who’s from a conservative perspective, it seems like it was par for the course that they’d be shouted down with whistles and klaxons and loud hailers.”
“And suddenly it feels like those on the more extreme of the right have taken up those same weapons.”
WELCOME TO COUNTRY “BAKED INTO OUR CULTURE”, BUT NOT ON ANZAC DAY
“So I think once the boos started, it’s crossed the line, and I think it will continue over the coming years, regardless of what you think.”
“I don’t think anything will be learned. I think the battle lines are fairly drawn on this one. And I get both.”
“I would never have a Welcome to Country to open up a church service ever, because I believe that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, and both political sides have to bow down to that.”
“But I do think it’s very much become politicised. I’ve done a lot of flights in the last five years, hundreds of them, and every time the plane lands, we get an acknowledgement of country.”
“So It’s almost baked into the culture at the moment, but when it steps into ANZAC, I think people have said: Hey, that shouldn’t happen.“
“ANZAC DAY HAS BECOME SECULARLY SACRED OVER PAST 30 YEARS”
“ANZAC has become more important in the last 30 years as religious observance has drained off in Australia.”
“So, ANZAC itself is a heightened event in a way that it wasn’t prior to John Howard being Prime Minister for a good couple of decades.”
“I think when it heightens that event and then you have this other heightened political perspective, you’re definitely going to get conflict.”
REASONS FOR DIVISIONS MORE COMPLEX THAN JUST RACISM
“I don’t think it’s just about racism. I wouldn’t boo at an event like that. I think there’s a place to say, I have concerns about that and take them to the RSL or whoever later.”
“I think that there are elements of racism and I’ve seen some of them.”
“We have acknowledged certain things for a certain number of years and every time we have an event, some people are saying it’s getting hijacked by Welcome to Country.”
“So that’s the question, because I don’t think people are necessarily being racist about that issue.”
“LACK OF AUSTRALIAN VISION OF HUMAN FLOURISHING”
“I don’t think we have a common understanding or common vision of human flourishing in Australia that any longer can bring people together.”
“We also know that ANZAC in the last 10 years in certain sections of the media was described as another colonial expedition, which was against the Turks and destroyed people.”
“I think that’s dialled down a little bit and Australians are, I think, more aligned with ANZAC now than they have been in the past.”
“But at the same time you’ve got this other more woke perspective that you should be apologising for your colonial past.”
“PEOPLE ARE NO LONGER RESTRAINED IN THEIR RESPONSES”
“So you’ve got oil and water mixing and I think that’s part of the problem.”
“People no longer are restrained in their responses to the opposite perspective at the moment.”
“I think that’s a part of issue that’s very hot culturally.”
LOVING YOUR ENEMY AND RECONCILATION
“From a Biblical perspective, the first thing I would say is Jesus also said: But I say unto you, love your enemy.”
“I think we’re lacking the love of the enemy, never mind our friend at the moment.”
“So, the word that I do think that we have in our culture, especially through the Indigenous framework at the moment, is the issue of reconciliation.”
“And the scriptures say that Paul himself was given the ministry of reconciliation, reconciling people to God, which Ephesians 2 then says once the barrier between us and God is resolved, the barrier between humans is resolved.”
“CHURCHES MUST GET INVOLVED”
“I can’t see a way of getting past this without the churches being involved.”
“I think the Indigenous churches have worked well on that area and I think many Western churches have.”
“I think Western and Indigenous churches could actually show some united front and work hard together to come to some sort of rapprochement for the culture and show a way forward for the culture.”
A STAND-OFF IN AUSTRALIAN VALUES
“I think what we’ve got is a values stand-off.”
“You’ve seen it with Australia Day and now you’ve seen it with ANZAC Day that there are different values in our culture that people hold to, that say booing is the right thing to do here because we’re standing up for our value.”
“You’ll also see Indigenous people saying can we please change the date because we are standing up our value, and so the Christian community has to be able to figure out how it deals with secondary issues.”
“I think we’re in a difficult place because we don’t have a coherent national narrative as to what it means to be Australian. Who decides what it means to be an Australian?”
“I think that’s the battle we’re struggling with.”
WHAT CAN BE DONE AHEAD OF NEXT ANZAC DAY?
“Next year, ANZAC Day falls on a Sunday, so I would say you have a church service where the passage to be preached on is: Is there no greater love than this and someone to lay down their life for a friend and then explain Jesus in that context.”
“I think the ANZAC service itself is a secular liturgy of Australia and it’s some way of giving meaning and purpose to people.”
“I think next year will be very good in the lead up to ANZAC Day to try and do some sort of cultural analysis, even in your church, or some apologetic talks about Are we going to end up with the same divisions this year?”
“We’ll show you how to move beyond it. I think we could actually do some creative work to think about how to move beyond the divisions, in our churches in the coming year.”
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