Radio National Transcripts:
John Cleary: Today, religious journalism and a little politics.
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Last year 'Church Scene' the National Anglican newspaper was allowed to fold. It left Australia's second largest Christian denomination without any effective national platform for internal debate, a far cry from the heady days of controversialist Francis James. Well now it seems moves are afoot to establish a new Anglican newspaper and tentative discussions between the major players have already begun.
More on that story shortly, but first to the Queensland elections, where the remarkable vote for One Nation is causing even the churches to take stock.
The Reverend John Woodley is better placed than most to talk to us. He is an ordained Uniting Church minister who spent much of his ministry in the parishes of rural Queensland, and he is also Senator John Woodley, Australian Democrat spokesperson for rural and Aboriginal issues.
John, thanks for joining us. Do you feel doubly damaged, one as a Democrat staring down the barrel of the gun lobby, and second as a Christian minister who has worked with rural communities on social justice issues for many years?
John Woodley: At last we're seeing what I think has been there for a long time, and that is the results of the politics of resentment that have been cultivated by the right side of politics in this country for many years, but has now enabled the germination of a full blown political party whose only policy is division.
John Cleary: But isn't it a fact that what's called the lunar right, if you like, have had growing influence among church communities for many years through regional Queensland and northern New South Wales particularly, and that in some areas, even pastors have begun to receive them quite sympathetically?
John Woodley: Oh absolutely. This is one of the problems, and I've tracked that situation for many years myself, because many of these groups claim to be Christian, and they also claim to be conservative I might add, and they're neither. The problem is that unless pastors are prepared to preach the gospel that God is on the side of those who live on the edges of life, and to understand that therefore God is on the side of all rural dwellers, whether they're black or white, whether they're farmer or businessman or unemployed, then of course rural communities themselves become divided. And what I think is critical is that rural communities begin to understand that just because groups in their midst claim to be Christian, that claim needs to be tested, always and unfortunately it hasn't been.
John Cleary: Who do you see the key groups in this movement are, particularly the ones that have the strongest pull for church members?
John Woodley: Well the ones that have the strong pull, because they all claim to be Christian, are of course the old groups like the League of Rights, whose motto virtually is 'For God, King, and Country' sort of thing; the League of Rights, groups like the Citizens Electoral Council, which has a couple of Christians at the top who are acquaintances of mine; groups like the Logos Foundation, which has faded from the scene to a large degree, but was very prominent in Queensland a couple of years ago; and it's these sort of semi-Christian organisations that often have links to the Moral Majority and similar groups in the United States. And then even more shadowy groups such as the Aryan Nation and those sort of groups.
John Cleary: It would seem to me that community associations are one of the primary ways these groups gain influence, and church associations are some of the last and most enduring of those associations. So what's your estimate of their influence within church associations?
John Woodley: Well it varies and some of the more fundamentalist churches are more susceptible to this than the mainstream churches, but that's not letting mainstream churches off the hook because certainly on the Darling Downs and in the South Burnet and North Burnet even, areas of Queensland, which I suppose you could call the Bible Belt, many of these groups find a very fertile ground within churches. I mean, there's another group that calls itself The Christian Coalition, which has been very active over the last couple of years, particularly again active in terms of the politics of resentment and division, and that group, because of its name Christian Coalition, has operated very effectively to raise for instance, antagonism towards gay people. That's been one of their real targets, and again, it's this idea that you create an enemy and you say 'This is the enemy of all that is Christian, good and true' and again you get people feeling not only that it's right to hate and reject this other group of people, but they even see it as their Christian duty.
John Cleary: The welfare lobbies for years were trying to alert the Labor Party to the fact that in urban communities there was serious alienation from the Labor Party because people were feeling the dispossession coming from unemployment, inner urban crime, social problems of that sort. Now on the conservative side of politics, the right, the dispossessed of the right, are saying exactly the same thing, but their masters are not hearing the message either.
John Woodley: No, that's true, and one of the problems with politics in all of the western democracies is the growth in what I would call the corporate State. And the corporate State is organised separately from the parliament, it's virtually the Cabinet or whoever's the ruling elite, we'll say the Cabinet in Australia's case, that talks to other powerful groups in the community and really does not try to listen to the parliament or to elected representatives, even its own back bench, and that's one of the phenomenons of modern western democracies, that politicians no longer represent, they seek to manage.
John Cleary: Senator John Woodley, thank you. Australian Democrat Senator and Uniting Church Minister, the Reverend John Woodley.
And so, to the Fourth Estate. The Media. In particular, the church press. Very discreet moves are under way to establish a new national Anglican newspaper. Since the closure of 'Church Scene' last year, national coverage has been left to 'Marketplace' a newspaper published in the Bathurst diocese, but one whose editorial line is not well received in Sydney. Sensitivies in other States about the possible involvement of Sydney in any new venture are acute, as I found when I asked the Reverend Bruce Kaye, General Secretary of the National Synod, about the role of a national newspaper.
Bruce Kaye: I'd put it in terms of the need to have an arena in which a conversation amongst Australian Anglicans can take place. And I've put it that way because I think it needs to be accessible to a wide range of people, not in terms just of their opinions or their geographical location, but in terms of the kinds of things that they are interested in. In other words, I think the conversation needs to be at a level where the average Australian Anglican can pick it up and take part.
John Cleary: Yes, it's not the elites talking to the elites.
Bruce Kaye: No, and that's a very important point in my view, about the nature of our church and the nature of our Anglican community.
John Cleary: The group that's putting this together, are they drawn from Melbourne, Sydney and other places?
Bruce Kaye: I think John I'm in the position of being party to and encouraging some private conversations which people are not yet ready to talk openly about. That isn't because of any secrecy involved, it's because they're still trying to develop what they think, and how they might proceed with the matter. I don't know that I really can talk about that too much.
John Cleary: The real sort of acid test is when it comes to who pays the piper. Would it be necessary for some such newspaper, for it's bare survival, to have real structural commitment from Sydney?
Bruce Kaye: I don't know the answer to that, John. I don't think the discussions have gone that far, and I'm increasingly getting into a difficult position in the conversation because the conversations necessarily have been fairly restricted.
John Cleary: So you've got no view as to when and how this paper might be launched?
Bruce Kaye: I think the people concerned are simply going ahead a step at a time, and I think in the second half of this year, some more precision might begin to emerge, and there will certainly need then to be a more open testing of the waters. But at this stage I think it's very preliminary and therefore not widely publicised.
John Cleary: To what extent then is Sydney involvement necessary, or even vital to its success?
Bruce Kaye: I think that what any national newspaper needs to achieve is acceptance across the whole spectrum, and the discussions that are going on I think will try and secure that.
John Cleary: The Reverend Bruce Kaye.
Sydney, the most numerically and financially powerful Anglican diocese in Australia, is a critical element in any truly representative view of a national church. Yet Sydney is also seen as highly ideological, and at odds with many elements in the wider church. The place of women being but one example. So to what extent is Sydney involved in the project? Margaret Rodgers is the Chief Executive Officer of Anglican Media in Sydney.
Margaret Rodgers: I've been consulted and there are some conversations, but there is not yet any specific proposal coming out.
John Cleary: How would you see the tension between say a magazine of that sort and the role of a diocese like Sydney, like would a magazine such as that be looking for support from the diocese before it got started?
Margaret Rodgers: Well it would have to I think. If you like at the size of the diocese of Sydney, we do say about one-third of all churchgoing Anglicans in Australia are in the diocese of Sydney, and so if there is not a fair degree of support for a publication from the diocese of Sydney, its chances of seeing itself operating successfully are quite slim. I know that people recognise that that is the case, that it needs support from Sydney, and also from Melbourne.
John Cleary: Deaconess Margaret Rodgers of Anglican Media in Sydney.
Well Melbourne was the home of 'Church Scene', the national paper which closed last year. Charles Sherlock was its Editor and has first-hand experience of negotiating the tensions with Sydney. Charles, could the rest of Australia accept a national newspaper whose pursestrings were substantially tied to Sydney?
Charles Sherlock: Well it could survive, it would be difficult, but if Sydney took the attitude, 'OK, we are the original, we're where the Anglican church in Australia first landed. We do have some sort of priority and responsibility to the rest of the church' and if, as they did in Archbishop Loane's day, they continued to use their endowment funds that come from that priority for the good of the national church but said, 'OK, we will, for example, allow $100,000 a year from our media budget to support a national newspaper, and we won't make any strings attached. That money will pay the Editor or whoever the staff happens to be' and they really didn't attach any strings, apart from that it was obviously Anglican, and that sort of thing. That I think would be largely welcomed. But I'm sad to say, that given the record of their not paying their special assessment for General Synod, that's the money that goes to causes beyond what you have to pay, I don't see that happening, but you never know.
John Cleary: Charles Sherlock, past Editor of 'Church Scene', the national Anglican newspaper which closed last year.
Well you never do know. The Sydney diocese is acutely aware of the advantages a successfully accepted national newspaper would have in providing them with a voice, even to appreciating the need for a clear apprehension of independence. Margaret Rodgers.
Margaret Rodgers: I think it would have to be an independent company which wasn't seen as belonging to either of those two places, or just simply to those two places. But my own honest opinion is that if a company was founded which appeared to come from Sydney, it would not have a lot of chance of being successful in the Anglican Church of Australia, that there would be quite a degree of suspicion of anything that came out from Sydney. I think that that's unfortunate but it's something that we live with from the diocese of Sydney, and I feel that a publication would be better coming from Melbourne than from Sydney.
John Cleary: Deaconess Margaret Rodgers, Executive Director of Anglican Media in Sydney.
So what are the chances of such a venture? Well I can tell you that discussions may be a little further advanced than appears from those interviews. A concept proposal for a fortnightly 8-page tabloid newspaper was presented and approved at the Annual Bishops' Conference in April, and discussions about possible company structures are already under way. Stay tuned.
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One of the world's most prestigious sacred music festivals has just finished in Fez in Morocco. It was established in 1994 and in that short time has gained an international reputation for innovative programming and for its ability to attract world class performers and artists from across the faiths and denominations.
The BBC's Peter Culshaw has just returned from the annual Fez festival, and here's his report.
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Peter Culshaw: The courtyard of the Palace in Fez, with its gardens planted with roses and bamboo, is not the most obvious place that happen across the orthodox singing of the Byzantine choir of Greece, who are more used to singing vigils at the monastery of Mount Athos. But they have come with nearly 20 other world class groups to take part in what is becoming an increasingly important inter-faith celebration, the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music, now in its fourth year.
I asked Gerard Kurdijian the Artistic Director of the Festival, why he felt Fez was appropriate for such an event.
Gerard Kurdijian: Fez as you know, is one of the holy cities of Islam, it is the holiest city of course, and it's been founded by a saint, and since centuries it is a centre of knowledge, of religion, of faith, and for all those reasons it was a perfect city to welcome this idea and this festival. And this music touches the heart of everybody, and that's why sacred music is particularly well oriented to religious communication between people of different tradition and different culture.
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Peter Culshaw: The Festival opened with an adventurous double bill of black American opera singer Barbara Handries and Uzbekistani traditional singer, Monajet Yulcheva I asked Gerard Kurdijian why he had programmed these two very different singers together.
Gerard Kurdijian: Putting them on the same stage in the same night was for us, a symbol. A symbol of what is important, is not if you are coming from the western tradition of music or eastern or Arabic, or Muslim or Asiatic, but if you have intensity, if you have purity, if you have strength, you are as good as anybody.
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Peter Culshaw: Monajet's music is a fascinating mix of Persian and Arabic elements, with strong influences from the central Asian court musics of Bukhara and Kiva. Her name translates as 'prayer' or 'lamentation' and she's become something of a folk heroine in Uzbekistan.
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Monajet told me she's the only woman singer of her particular style, which is usually sung by men. Most of her songs are settings of mystical Islamic texts by Sufi poets. In the days before the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was forbidden to use the word 'God' in songs, which meant much of her repertoire was effectively banned. Monajet simply carried on singing, but left out the references to God. Now though, God's firmly reinstated in these deeply spiritual songs.
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The Festival featured sacred music from as far afield as Java, Ireland, India and Iraq. While much of the music came from Islamic or Christian traditions, one singer who typified the spirit of inter-faith dialogue at the Fez Festival was Albert Bouhadanna.
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Albert Bouhadanna is a Jew born in Morocco, who sings in Hebrew, accompanied by the orchestra of Fez which plays in the Andalous style. This is a traditional music, combining Spanish and Arab elements which has been kept alive by both Jews and Muslims in North Africa since the 15th century when their ancestors were expelled from Spain. Albert Bouhadanna now lives in Paris where he is the officiating minister at the Great Synagogue in Paris.
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It's not just the diverse spiritual traditions of the musicians which gives the festival at Fez its sacred dimension. As Artistic Director Gerard Kurdijian explains, the whole experience of the festival can have a profound effect on people.
Gerard Kurdijian: It's not like a festival in London, I'm sorry about that, but when you go to Fez you cannot escape from this city because there is nothing to do; there is no cinema, there is no theatre, there is nothing else than this festival and the old city and your hotel. So I mean you cannot lose the contact when you get back from the concert, you cannot take the metro, the underground, go to a bar, and go to a nightclub. So day after day, you are - it's like a massage, you know, and you cannot escape it. And after one week, your heart is a little bit changed.
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John Cleary: The music of Albert Bouhadanna. And that report from Peter Culshaw at the Fez Sacred Music Festival in Morocco.
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And finally, while we're dealing with matters concerning the arts, here's a footnote to the Rosemary Crumlin exhibition, 'Beyond Belief', that's currently showing in Melbourne.
Two local groups called The Centre for Creative Ministries, and Celebration Arts Victoria, are responding to the religious art challenge by putting their own works on display. They're calling the show 'Faith Works'. It will take the spiritual themes of 'Beyond Belief' into contemporary Australia, and challenge traditional notions of religious art in the process.
Lyn Gallacher: spoke to Harris Smart, the exhibition co-ordinator, about the sort of work that'll be included.
Harris Smart: We tend to attract and we tend to look for artists who are exploring a religious or spiritual dimension in their work. I mean we consider that's what we're all about. I mean maybe there are lots of other artists doing lots of other things, but it's that exploration of spirituality which is of particular interest to us. So I would say the artists who are part of our community are people who in one way or another are exploring the spirituality. That's not necessarily spirituality in a convention sense or even necessarily in a strictly Christian sense, but in one way or another they're trying to come to some understanding of what their life means, what's their relationship with the universe, what's their relationship with God, what's their relationship with their fellow human beings.
Lyn Gallacher: That is one of the interesting aspects of this kind of an exhibition, that it does tend to lose a unifying theological authority. I mean it's kind of about the rise of the status of personal spirituality, would you say?
Harris Smart: I'd say that absolutely. I would say there are maybe some people in the exhibition who do belong to mainstream Christian churches and follow quite a conventional Christian theology, but then there are other people who come from much more radical positions indeed.
Lyn Gallacher: Is good art good spirituality? Is there a kind of a conundrum there, or don't you see that?
Harris Smart: Well I think you've touched on a really interesting issue there, particularly in the puritan churches, there's this great distrust of art, they see it as terribly dangerous and seductive and will take you away from God. And what I think we were trying to encourage is 'Let's embrace the wholeness of life. Art is part of it, art is a wonderful way of glorifying and worshipping God and expressing your individuality and your relationship to God and the universe. So let it flower, let it flourish, let's encourage energy and newness and individuality'.
Lyn Gallacher: And worry about aesthetics later?
Harris Smart: Well I think energy and sincerity and all those sorts of things become part of aesthetics. I've written an introduction to the catalogue for this exhibition and I've called it 'A Life at Stake' and this came out of a conversation I had with a Franciscan monk, a Franciscan friar, Patrick Hennigan, who was also a very, very good artist. And Patrick was talking to me one day and he said, 'Yes,' he said, 'This is what it's all about' he said, 'Every time you paint, you've got to put your life at stake.' And that really resonated with me, and I thought well, if you're not putting your life at stake every instant, in whatever it is you're doing, then it's not worth doing. And this was my criteria for the artists that I went for in this show. You know, are they people in some way or another who are putting their life at stake. Are they really passionate about what they're doing, are they really trying to say something in the work that they're producing?
Lyn Gallacher: And the National Gallery of Victoria obviously thinks it's on a roll. It's done one Beyond Belief religious art exhibition, and now it's on to another.
Harris Smart: Well that's right. We timed our little exhibition so that it would overlap with the end of Beyond Belief, and in some ways I see our exhibition as a kind of local contemporary footnote to the very wonderful exhibition that Rosemary Crumlin put together. I mean she's gathered together all the great modern masters, you know, Rothko, Picasso, Spencer etc., and now we have all our local artists right up to the minute, right up to the date local artists who are working in somewhat similar ways. So I think there is a relationship between the two exhibitions, although we wouldn't want to push that too far.
But I think one thing that's exciting about our exhibition is we have not only painting, but also videos, ceramics, mosaics, jewellery, and we have a marvellous installation which is called The Garden Shed: A Contemporary Shrine created by an artist called Anne-Marie Power, and what she's done is actually taken a garden shed that she bought from her local hardware store, and turned it into a religious shrine, you know, on the idea that all we Australian males we always like to have our little garden shed out in the backyard where we can go away and be by ourselves or be with our mates or something like that. So that's a whimsical work, but in its own little way, it's sort of challenging the conventions of what religious art is all about, and that I hope is one of the things this exhibition will do.
Lyn Gallacher: And just getting back to Beyond Belief for a second, do you think that that exhibition has had an impact on the local community?
Harris Smart: I think it's had a big impact. One of the things that I think is really important about it, is that there's been a curatorial personality behind the show. When you go and see that show, you know that there's a woman who really cares about this art and this theme, and has really invested her life, again she's put her life at stake, in putting this exhibition together. Whereas so many exhibitions these days, they're so bland, you don't really feel that someone who really cares and feels passionate about this has been involved. So just as a statement of a curatorial personality, I think this show is really important. And then of course it's also important in terms of encouraging people to think about art and religion and spirituality.
Lyn Gallacher: And is it out there in the local parishes, is it like 'Oh, have you been?' 'I've been.' 'No, I should go.' 'I must get there.' And people are discussing the works?
Harris Smart: I think that's happening, and I know that in some parishes you know, the whole congregation says 'Well next Sunday we're not coming to church we're all going to see Beyond Belief' and that of course includes the Minister as well. But that is happening. Whole church congregations come as a group to see the exhibition, yes.
John Cleary: Harris Smart from the Centre of Creative Ministries, talking to Lyn Gallacher. And the exhibition 'Faith Works' opens next month in the National Gallery of Victoria and in case you're wondering, 'Beyond Belief' is at the same place until July 26th.
Before we go, the Church of Princess Diana has finally emerged and has a website where Diana's words are excerpted from the new bible, Diana Speaks. Unlike the immortality in the next life religions, it's mission is to teach its members how to stay young and live forever in this life. The People's Princess has appeared after her accident exclusively to Chairman Yao, the church's founder, and a Yale Divinity School graduate. The Princess is healing and prophesying exclusively through Chairman Yao who has compiled her messages into a book, the church bible called Diana Speaks (trademark). The church claims 7,000 members, supporters and sympathisers worldwide and as I said, has a website in progress.
That's all for today, thanks to Lyn Gallacher and John Diamond.
The Religion Report is broadcast every Wednesday at 8.30am and 8.05pm on Radio National, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's national radio network of ideas.
