{"id":14229,"date":"2014-08-13T09:00:27","date_gmt":"2014-08-12T22:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/?p=14229"},"modified":"2014-08-13T13:32:57","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T02:32:57","slug":"book-in-god-they-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2014\/08\/13\/book-in-god-they-trust\/","title":{"rendered":"Book: In GOD They Trust?"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a not insignificant number of professing Christians in our Federal and Tasmanian Parliaments my thoughts have been drawn to an important\u00a0book, \u201cIn GOD They Trust?”.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The book highlights the religious beliefs of Australia\u2019s Prime Ministers over the last century and\u00a0addresses the way in which their religious beliefs influence their approach to public life\u00a0and national leadership\u00a0.<\/p>\n

The book\u00a0is well written and researched. I\u00a0found 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?<\/p>\n

The book groups our Prime Ministers into eight broad categories.\u00a0 To some extent they serve to highlight the various religious \u2018types\u2019 who have directed the nation\u2019s affairs since Federation:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The Good and Faithful Servant (Andrew Fisher, James Scullin, Joseph Lyons).<\/li>\n
  2. The Ardent Seekers (Alfred Deakin, Billy McMahon, Kevin Rudd).<\/li>\n
  3. The Righteous Straighteners (Joseph Cook, Billy Hughes, John Howard).<\/li>\n
  4. The More-Than-Tribal Catholics (Ben Chifley, Paul Keating).<\/li>\n
  5. The Enigmatic Presbyterians (George Reid, Robert Menzies, Malcolm Fraser).<\/li>\n
  6. Labor\u2019s Lapsed? (John Curtin, Bob Hawke, Julia Gillard).<\/li>\n
  7. The Fellow-Travellers (Chris Watson, Stanley Melbourne Bruce, John Gorton, Gough Whitlam).<\/li>\n
  8. The Gentlemanly Agnostics (Edmund Barton, Harold Holt).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    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 \u2018types\u2019 Prime Minister Tony Abbott seems to most\u00a0embody, I leave to a few more years of grace. Certainly, our current Prime Minister’s leadership and its relationship to his religion\u00a0is\u00a0already drawing keyboard time from commentators.<\/p>\n

    See\u00a0an interesting interview of the author, Roy Williams,\u00a0by Simon Smart of the\u00a0Centre for Public Christianity, here<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

    See also, Gillard\u2019s atheism an issue?<\/span><\/span><\/a> and Is Rudd\u2019s Religion political opportunism?<\/span><\/span><\/a> and Leadership: Kevin Rudd by Tim Costello<\/span><\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    With a not insignificant number of professing Christians in our Federal and Tasmanian Parliaments my thoughts have been drawn to an important\u00a0book, \u201cIn GOD They Trust?”.\u00a0 The book highlights the religious beliefs of Australia\u2019s Prime Ministers over the last century … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14229"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14229"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15194,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14229\/revisions\/15194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}