Howard Langmead - social commentator, comedian & cleric
 
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Oh God! He's back

By Howard Langmead
published in “The Walkley Magazine” Dec 04/Jan 05

MEL GIBSON'S THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST PUT THE CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS ON THE FRONT PAGE OF PAPERS; GARY ABLETT INTRODUCED GOD TO THE SPORTS SECTION. THEN THERE'S BORN AGAIN GEORGE DUBYA AND AL-QAEDA. RELIGION IS BACK ON THE AGENDA SAYS HOWARD LANGMEAD WHETHER SOME JOURNALISTS ARE READY OR NOT, ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN TIEDEMAN.

God is back in the news. Religion is playing a significant role in war, terrorism and US policy decisions. The issue of acceptable dress in French schools can't be reported without a discussion of religion. It's invoked in ethical debates, and is the impetus behind an enormous amount of humanitarian work. Yet not so long ago reporting religion meant reviewing sermons and parish fetes for the "Church Page".

September 11, 2001 marked a watershed in the coverage of religion and ethics. The pervading assumption of Western media that we live a secularised world was proven patently wrong. Journalists needed to understand and interpret the nuances of Islam. They were also reporting the responses in the US and Australia, which included an increase in church attendance, prayer and spiritual practices. For many people loss and the threat to personal security are religious issues. Ethical issues - such as revenge versus response, how we handle a clash of cultures, and the nature of evil - were debated in the press.

In the mainstream media, background and feature articles about faith perspectives and spiritual journeys are no longer rare. In "A fight to keep the faith" (The Age 21/5/04) Barney Zwartz wrote sensitively about a young Pakistani man who converted to Christianity, his struggle with his family and his disappointment with liberal Australian Christians who questioned his need to convert.

Richard Kerbaj wrote a feature article "The ultimate cure-all - pills or prayers?", seeking a connection between prayer and healing. He represented peoples faith fairly and concluded with a respectful agnosticism, quoting Abou-Hamben of the Royal Adelaide Hospital:
"We have a lot more evidence for medicine working than we have for spirituality working," she says. "So spirituality still has along way to go to prove that it is curing things." (The Age 3/2/04)

A major topic of religious news in recent times has been the serious issue of sexual abuse in the church. Open investigative reporting is essential, even if painful for all those involved. Secrecy and lack of transparency has been part of the problem. The press has had a positive role in exposing cover ups and the complicity of those who did not appropriately handled reports of sexual abuse.

There were accusations that Dr Peter Hollingworth was hounded unfairly for his actions, or inaction, in handling sexual abuse claims against a priest when he was archbishop of Brisbane. Some Christians felt that the secular media was hostile to organized religion. I disagree. I believe the public debate voiced through the media was important element in defining responsibility and standards of behaviour relating to child sexual abuse.

However some media outlets succumb to stereotyping and over-simplification with religious issues. On September 4, 2004, I was present at the Melbourne Anglican Synod where we discussed at length and with pain the issues around sexual abuse in the church. I heard that the protocols now in place in Melbourne Diocese - the compulsory Power and Trust Seminars for all church workers, advertisements encouraging victims of abuse to report misconduct, and the background checks on volunteer workers - were setting a standard for other churches around the world. But on ABC radio all I heard was the Synod was given a report that "detailed 104 claims of sexual assault, harassment and bullying that have come to light over the last 18 months". (ABC News Radio 6/9/04)

Yet the lead given by some churches in this issue has not been totally ignored by the media. The Age (21/8/04) quoted Anglican primate Peter Carnley, as criticising some state governments for failing to demand checks on people who work with children:
"Only six or seven per cent of abuse is by ministers or church workers. Churches can't do it alone," he said. "We're encouraging all state governments to put in place working-with-children checks such as there are in NSW and Queensland."

I appreciate critical reporting on religious issues where the facts are accurate and opinions are owned as such. I do not appreciate stereotypes and myths being perpetuated: for example, the view that the Christian church is no longer relevant in a secular, multicultural society. This proposition is well supported in the media - mostly by implication - but not by statistics or social research. The truth behind the myth is that the church no longer has the monopoly on spirituality in Western cultures that it had pre 1950 and church attendances have dropped dramatically in recent decades.

While the organised church adjusts to being just one spiritual option in a religious smorgasbord, it is still far from irrelevant in Australian culture. In the last census in 2001, nearly 70 per cent of Australians identified themselves as Christians. In looking at the numbers who actively practice some form of Christian faith the National Church Life Survey, also taken in 2001, claimed that more people are in church in Australia on any given Sunday than the total number of individuals who attend an AFL match in a year. The fervour and commitment of these two groups was not compared.

Australia is a multi-faith nation. In the latest census the number of people who identified with a faith other than Christianity was around eight percent, up by around two per cent from the previous census. In order of size the main groups were Bhuddists, Muslims & Jews.

The increase in the numbers of Bhuddists is largely explained by migration from South-Esat Asia over the recent decade, but I have twice heard radio journalists trying to prove their assumption that Christianity is declinig in favour of Bhuddism. A polite Bhuddhist monk explained on ABC Local Radio that for every Western person who embraced Bhuddism, ten Asians became Christians.

Just prior to being interviewed for a Compass program, a producer asked me not to use the words "Christianity" or "Jesus" but to use "religion" and "God". I don't know if the Buddhist, Muslim and Jewish people interviewed for that program were given similar instructions, but thankfully the desired religious blandness was not achieved.

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