The enduring principles of Menzies' public Christian engagement

The cultural currency of Christianity is vastly different from that of Menzies’ time as Prime Minister, yet even in our highly secularised society, there are principles from Menzies’ era that we can contend for in the present time. By David Furse-Roberts.

At the same time as fostering a common Christianity as part of Australia’s identity and heritage, Robert Menzies recognised the diversity of post-war Australia’s faith communities and therefore promoted religious freedom, non-sectarianism and interfaith harmony in the civic life of the nation.

Prior to the growth of Islam, Buddhism and other religious faiths in Australia from the 1970s, Judaism represented Australia’s second largest religious community. Menzies enjoyed an excellent rapport with Australia’s Jews whom he admired for their resilience from centuries of persecution in Europe and elsewhere. He respected the Jewish legacy for its Old Testament origins and profound contribution to Western civilisation, as well as admiring the Jewish people for their cultural traditions of scholarship, civic-mindedness and enduring sense of kinship. Frequently invited to speak at ceremonies organised by the Jewish community, Menzies praised the Jewish people for their contribution to Australia.

With his abiding commitment to religious freedom, Menzies affirmed the place of all faiths in Australia. In his address to the 1964 Cardinal’s Dinner, he remarked that:

“We are all members one of another. This is something we must never lose sight of, and whether we be Catholic or Protestant or Jewish or Muslim, the end remains clear: We have an overwhelming duty to serve our country on the highest level and to the best of our talents.”

This was premised on a long-held conviction in religious freedom for all citizens, including those of no faith. In a 1941 address on religious freedom, Menzies stressed that religious freedom was freedom for all: ‘Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile, and that to deny it was to go back to the dark ages of man’. As unappealing as atheism may have been to Menzies as a belief-system, he nonetheless affirmed the freedom ‘to worship or not to worship’.

Of atheists and agnostics, he remarked: ‘There have been honest and indeed noble men in this world who have never been able to find a God. Are we to deny them their place?’ In Australia and elsewhere, different faith communities will never agree on the nature of the divine and the path of salvation, yet in civil society, they can find plenty of common ground with their appeal to human goodwill and the pursuit of the common good. The calling for Christians and others of faith in such a society, to quote the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of London, ‘is to be true to our faith while being a blessing to others regardless of their faith’.

The cultural currency of Christianity and the public standing of the churches today is vastly different from that of Menzies’ time as Prime Minister, yet even in our highly secularised society, there are principles from Menzies’ era that we can contend for in the present time. These include the acceptance of a religiously plural society yet one in touch with its Judeo-Christian roots, the freedom of political conscience for the religious believer, a holistic view of human flourishing, and a belief that all people bear the image of God. To be sure, some of these will be accepted by popular opinion while others will attract more resistance, but that after all, is the reception to be expected of the Christian message in any place or time.

Cherished Australia’s Christian heritage, yet affirmed the place of all citizens of all faiths

First, Menzies saw no tension with a country such as ours in being able to cherish and celebrate its Christian heritage while also been open and embracing of citizens from all religious or non-religious creeds. Menzies would have rejected the secularist myth that post-1788 Australia evolved in some kind of spiritual vacuum with no formative religious foundation. Rather, he would have accepted the sensible thesis of the historian Manning Clarke that modern Australia was forged primarily by the three traditions of Protestantism, Catholicism and the Enlightenment. Indeed, he would have recognised that it was the Judeo-Christian impulses of hospitality, toleration and love of neighbour, drawn from teachings such as the ‘Parable of the Good Samaritan’, that made it possible for such a society to welcome newcomers of different backgrounds and faiths.

Articulating this neighbourly ethic at a Citizenship Convention in 1950, Menzies said that ‘we should regard every migrant as our friend, and we should go to no end of trouble to make every migrant feel at home’. He understood also that immigrants were attracted to Australia for the very country that it already was, with those attractive features of freedom, peace, order, the rule of law and good government being undeniable fruits of its Judeo-Christian inheritance. For Christian believers, this inheritance can be best understood as a providential blessing to be cherished with thanksgiving.

Affirmed freedom of political conscience for the Christian

Second, given Menzies’ toleration for a plurality of religious views in civic life, it was not surprising that he also exhibited a toleration for a plurality of political views within the Christian community. As attached as Menzies was to his own Liberal Party, he accepted that there was room in every political party for men and women of all schools of Christian thought. Believing in a faith that transcended political creeds, Menzies’ conception of Christianity was avowedly non-partisan. He remarked that: ‘It would be a poor day if we got to the stage of believing that in our particular church everybody must subscribe to a particular political party’. In a speech to Sydney’s Wesley Mission in 1958, he warned against the temptation for Christians to express their faith in party-political terms but insisted that this was different from expressing one’s politics in Christian terms. Essentially, this meant that instead of a person’s faith being informed by their political ideology, their political creed should be informed by their faith. This was because Menzies believed that as important as political ideas were, a religious faith such as Christianity was of greater and over-riding importance.

Promoted a holistic view of human flourishing

Third, the importance Menzies accorded to personal religious faith formed part of his holistic view of human flourishing. As much as he welcomed the rising standard of living in the post-war era with more Australian households owning homes, cars, modern appliances and other consumer goods, he reminded his citizens that there was much more to the ‘good life’ than simply material gain. In a 1962 address, he said that:  

“We could easily become man for man, woman for woman, the richest country in the Southern Hemisphere, but it won’t matter very much unless we can say that we are the most civilised country ... Civilised because we understand the unselfish duties of citizenship; civilised because we have come to understand the importance of the human being, the dignity of the human being, the dignity of labour, the responsibility of riches. These are the tests of civilisation, and our great task is to produce a civilised nation.”

Like the celebrated Russian intellectual and Soviet dissident, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Menzies was awake to not only the tyranny of Soviet communism in the East, but also the danger of rising materialism in the West.

In a Western world preoccupied with materialistic imperatives such as economic growth, prosperity and productivity, the high premium Menzies afforded to faith, moral character, freedom, civilisation, community and personal relationships remain eminently instructive for today. It is a reminder for us not only as a nation, but as individuals, that it is the character of our hearts, the way we treat others, the relationships we build and the difference we make to our world that counts rather than our net worth, postcode or possessions. Menzies’ old friend, Winston Churchill, put it well when he said, ‘We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give’.

Stressed the Imago Dei of all people

Finally, for Menzies, the ultimate source of an individual’s worth was their creation in the image of God. As foreign as this may sound to secular ears, we need to be reminded of Menzies’ insight ‘that there is in very human soul a spark of the divine’ and that the souls of all ‘stand equal in the eyes of God’. His belief in the Imago Dei was thoroughly consistent, and when speaking about the importance of education in 1961, he said that:

“We must recapture our desire to know more, and feel more, about our fellowmen; to have a philosophy of living; to elevate the dignity of man, a dignity which, in our Christian concept, arises from our belief that he is made in the image of his Maker.”

Believing that each individual, in the words of the Psalmist, ‘is fearfully and wonderfully made’, it is surely this sage truth of the Hebrew scriptures that trumps any category of race, class, gender or sexuality as the source of our true human worth and identity. For believers in the Christian message, moreover, it is the Cross of Christ that is the great equaliser and guarantor of our human worth. From the richest king to the naked thief who hung beside the crucified Christ, all could find redemption and restoration through the power of the Cross.

David Furse-Roberts is a Research Fellow at the Menzies Research Centre and author of God & Menzies: The Faith that shaped a Prime Minister and his Nation. This is an edited extract of the Charles Perry Lecture.