The Null Device

Closing the gap between Church and State

More news on the Australian Liberal Party's project to establish a US-style religious-right power base: it now emerges that the Hillsong Church, a hardline, US-style Pentecostal church with links to the Liberal Party, has received almost A$800,000 in funding from various government agencies; this included funding for community programmes and "emergency relief", and more than $300,000 from the Department of Workplace Relations in the last financial year alone.

There are 8 comments on "Closing the gap between Church and State":

Posted by: steff http://ofterdingenandkropotkin.blogspot.com/ Thu Feb 17 22:46:46 2005

Good for them. Ora et Labora I say. Or was that Live and Let Die ? *woot* insert clichee here *woot* Sorry, only gallows humour left on this topic :\

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org/ Thu Feb 17 22:53:25 2005

I don't want my taxes going to some religious group, or that group to have a hand in drafting legislation to control my behaviour, thank you very much. I thought Australia was meant to be a liberal democracy.

Posted by: gjw http://the-fix.org Fri Feb 18 03:10:15 2005

The positive thing is, compared to the US, Hillsong Church _is_ the religious-right powerbase in it's entirety (plus it's branch offices like Paradise Community Church in Adelaide, thankyou Guy Sebastian). At the end of the day, fundamentalist Christianity is and always will be an absolute minority in Australia. These groups love to boast about the numbers of young people they have joining, but I know from first-hand experience that most of the kids joining the church at 16 have quit (sustaining major emotional injuries) by the time they're 23.

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org/ Fri Feb 18 09:44:49 2005

Given enough government support, could you not see it growing and expanding and changing the sociopolitical landscape of Australia to be more like the US, naturally advantaging the Right?

Posted by: Michael S. http://beebo.org Fri Feb 18 14:08:58 2005

A whole lot of churches get money to operate support programmes, you know.

The Family and Community Services Website lists the Uniting Church, Jewish Care, the Salvation Army, etc. as recipients:

http://www.facs.gov.au/welfarereform/awt/programmesAndServices/personalSupportProgramme/providers/default.shtml

Do you want them all not to get money, or just Hillsong?

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Fri Feb 18 14:57:25 2005

Though do they get quite as much money as those whose political agenda coincides with the Liberal Party's strategic planning and/or the Howard cabinet's social-conservative cultural bias? (Note that the Salvation Army also falls into this category.)

As for religious organisations getting less state funding, I'm all for that. Religion should be a personal matter, not a matter for the state.

Posted by: me http:// Wed Feb 23 03:35:52 2005

an other fundamentalist state to add to the axis of evil list. the next target to diffuse their regression principles is school.

Posted by: no way http:// Sat Mar 26 21:03:56 2005

They are given money by the australian government for civic programs they run. They aren't church related programs. That money goes into things like feeding homeless people ect. Read about it on their websight, www.hillsong.com