With a not insignificant number of professing Christians in our Federal and Tasmanian Parliaments my thoughts have been drawn to an important book, “In GOD They Trust?”. 

The book highlights the religious beliefs of Australia’s Prime Ministers over the last century and addresses the way in which their religious beliefs influence their approach to public life and national leadership .

The book is well written and researched. I found it very challenging and thought provoking, not just to the consideration of our former Prime Ministers’ leadership but also to my own leadership practise. In what way has the Good News of Jesus Christ truly influenced my leadership?

The book groups our Prime Ministers into eight broad categories.  To some extent they serve to highlight the various religious ‘types’ who have directed the nation’s affairs since Federation:

1. The Good and Faithful Servant (Andrew Fisher, James Scullin, Joseph Lyons).
2. The Ardent Seekers (Alfred Deakin, Billy McMahon, Kevin Rudd).
3. The Righteous Straighteners (Joseph Cook, Billy Hughes, John Howard).
4. The More-Than-Tribal Catholics (Ben Chifley, Paul Keating).
5. The Enigmatic Presbyterians (George Reid, Robert Menzies, Malcolm Fraser).
6. Labor’s Lapsed? (John Curtin, Bob Hawke, Julia Gillard).
7. The Fellow-Travellers (Chris Watson, Stanley Melbourne Bruce, John Gorton, Gough Whitlam).
8. The Gentlemanly Agnostics (Edmund Barton, Harold Holt).

The book was written prior to the election of our current Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, who is a professed Christian. As to deciding on which of the religious ‘types’ Prime Minister Tony Abbott seems to most embody, I leave to a few more years of grace. Certainly, our current Prime Minister’s leadership and its relationship to his religion is already drawing keyboard time from commentators.

See an interesting interview of the author, Roy Williams, by Simon Smart of the Centre for Public Christianity, here.

See also, Gillard’s atheism an issue? and Is Rudd’s Religion political opportunism? and Leadership: Kevin Rudd by Tim Costello.