church and state: cult directed members to support PM

Posted: February 5th, 2007 ˑ Filled under: australia, elections, politics, religion, spin ˑ  No Comments

It’s come out in recent days that the Exclusive Brethren cult, which in the past has claimed to be not just politically neutral but to actually forbid participation in political activities, in fact instructed its Australian members to support the Prime Minister in the 2004 election in a letter. The cult is of course allegedly linked with the funding of election ads and other anti-Greens campaigning in Tasmania, Victoria, and federally, although of course the fact that the Liberal Party was billed for some Tasmanian ads was just a wacky mix-up.

The letter was described by the former leader of the Exclusive Brethren as a “call to arms as well as to prayer.” Some choice tidbits include that

[i]n recent years, God has raised up Christian men in Government ,

that the Whitlam years were

awful years … when there was serious decline in moral standards resulting in bad laws, strikes and union strife, poor economic management, high unemployment, very high interest rates … difficult trading conditions ,

and that we require the continuation of the Howard Government in order to

protect us from the Asian threat.

It’s unclear precisely what the ‘Asian threat’ is, although one might speculate that muslim Indonesia is high on the list in the cult’s eyes. Of course, it’s all a left-wing liberal media conspiracy, which is now both anti-God and anti-Howard:

The media have joined with the opposition to attempt to discredit the Prime Minister and make him a liar based on falsehoods… We should be cast on our faces before God and be united in spirit and in prayer, so that He may come in for us in view of the present government being retained.

Of course both Labor and the Coalition have blocked attempts by the Greens to launch a Senate inquiry into the cult, although one hopes that the ALP will reconsider that stance in light of these revelations.

You can listen to a Triple J story about the cult here. For a Green perspective (the party, not the environmental warm-fuzzy notion) on some of the Brethren’s anti-Green shenanigans you can start here and here.