Repugnant Behaviour

[megpie71]

It's interesting, really, when so-called "Christian" spokespersons get to talking about other religions in the media. For example, Australia's favourite Christian Democrat (imagine the scare quotes around each of those terms, please), the Reverend Fred Nile, has spoken up following the deaths of thirteen people on the Fort Hood military base in the USA to suggest the following:

"Australians would like to be assured that our defence forces have in place a system of assessment and review which would identify any person whose adherence to any alien ideology might one day override loyalty to mates and loyalty to the Crown." [...]

"There is an argument for suggesting that the safety and morale of our troops may warrant a ban on dedicated Muslims joining the armed forces, who may be influenced by Islamic fundamentalism." (quoted from the article Muslims in ranks a recipe for disaster: Nile on the ABC news website)

I'm not a Christian by any stretch of the word, but I seem to recall from my reading of the various gospels (and most particularly the gospel of Mark) one of the key things Jesus Christ (remember him?) said about following in Christ's footsteps was you had to put your loyalty to God before your loyalty to anything else - country, posessions, employment, even family. For examples of what Christ had to say on the matter, have a look at the following biblical passages: Mark 9: 43 - 48; Mark 10: 17 - 25; Matthew 5: 29 - 30 (the sermon on the mount); Matthew 6: 19 - 21; Matthew 6: 33 - 34; Matthew 10: 37 - 42.

It should therefore be reasonable to suggest there is an argument (in order to assure the Australian defence forces are able to "identify any person whose adherence to any [..] ideology might one day override loyalty to mates and loyalty to the Crown") for dedicated Christians to be banned from joining the Australian armed forces. Surely this is a more reasonable criterion than banning Muslims, since the religion of Christ, and particularly the version of the religion of Christ created by Saul of Tarsus (aka St Paul), is strongly opposed to the notion of warfare, fighting, and conquest in the first place - and therefore antithetical to the concepts on which the Australian Defence Forces are based.

It might also be reasonable to suggest the best thing the Reverend Fred Nile can do, in all Christian charity with the relatives and friends of those injured or deceased as a result of the Fort Hood shootings, is to shut his bloody gob, and re-read his bible. Maybe this time he could pay more attention to the gospels than to the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus.

Comments

[raisedbymoogles]

Dear Fred Nile: Oh my proverbial God shut your yap, you horrible insensitive man.

*growls, paces, rips pillow with teeth*

People using a tragic event with real human beings in it to make a political talking point really tick me off.

[vatine]

I guess it all boils down to what one calls "Christianity". If I remember my CoE correctly, the Queen is intermediate between the people and God, so loyalty to the Queen isn't, strictly speaking, in direct conflict with loyalty to God.

Loyalty to mates is, I believe, a high point in all variants of Christian faiths, but I could be wrong. It's been a good while since I had the reference cards out for a good bit of christianspotting (like bird-spotting, only with christians instead of avians).

Also, "hi, long time, no see".

[megpie71]

Heya, long time no see on this end, too.

Having spent a couple of minutes tracking down the Reverend Fred in wikipedia, it appears he's actually a minister of the Congregational church, which is a more evangelical and fundamentalist form of Protestant Christianity than the Church of England (not that this is saying much), although later in his religious career he was tending toward Methodism. He's also a NSW state MP rather than a Federal one, which doesn't stop him issuing press statements to the national media. He's known to be anti-Muslim, anti-homosexual and anti-Green (as well as being the wowser's wowser, and a right-wing reactionary old whatsit to boot) so the diatribe he's quoted as giving is perfectly in character.

Basically, the self-righteous windbag is issuing a press statement with a touch of controversial material in it because he wants to get a bit of publicity, and because it's a guaranteed way of getting his name in the papers. For which the Australian media (may some god bless them, for I certainly won't) may be blamed.

[vatine]

Ah, with evangelical churches, it's usually that everyone is closest to God, with (possibly) the preacher being just a smidgen more privileged, although the general idea is that that is only due to the fact that the preacher ministers to a flock and anyone can become a preacher or go on mission to gain the same privilege.