News

OPINION: Australia needs lovers more than thinkers at the Summit
By WAYNE BRIGHTON
April 17, 2008
Wayne Brighton * Wayne Brighton is a lay assistant at St John's Glebe, Sydney, and is a co-convener for CONVERSE, an interdenominational network for the Emerging Church. PM Kevin Rudd SUMMIT HOST: All set to host the 2020 Summit, PM Kevin Rudd

Australians have grown-up with the impression that all churches want is to sign-up new members.  When it comes to a summit, is it any wonder, writes WAYNE BRIGHTON*, that the churches are seen only to exist for the benefit of their members?

 

HOW many Australians does it take to change a nation?  1000 it seems. 

They'll all be there at Kevin Rudd's Australia 2020 Summit which meets from 19-20 April in Canberra.

The summit has been called to discuss and determine some long-term plans for critical areas in our nation's future.  These include:

* the economy, particularly education, training and innovation

* economic infrastructure and the future of our cities

* population, sustainability and climate change

* rural industries and rural communities

* a national health strategy

* strengthening communities, supporting families and social inclusion

* indigenous Australia

* creative arts, film and design

* Australian governance, particularly government transparency, the Federation and citizenship

* National security and prosperity.

The Summit will be chaired by Professor Glyn Davis, currently the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne and a former Queensland Government mandarin.  He led a group of 10 leaders to select 1000 of the finest minds in the nation from a pool of 8000 nominees, who either stepped forward or were nominated by various institutions around the country.

Opinion about the event has been mixed.  Many welcomed it following the closed shop approach of the Howard Government. 

Of course, questions swirled about its representativeness, particularly when only two topics would be led by women.  Some feared the return of elitist social engineering while many others worried that it would be little more than a talk-fest. 

Two things strike me about this event.

First, it sounds a lot like one organised by Donald Horne and the Australia Council in 1991.  That event unleashed a tide of nation building initiatives that briefly buoyed but ultimately sank the Keating Government.   It focussed attention on how Australia's future depended on becoming a competitive player in the global economy. 

Although many of its outcomes were achieved, it misread our nation's conservatism and the reaction it provoked lasted a decade.  It's great to have the brains at work but make no mistake, people vote with their hearts.  Economic rationalism was a great idea until it started costing people their livelihoods.

Second, I wonder at what role religion will play in the event. 

The 1991 event left religion out in the cold.  For Horne, religion was a private matter and therefore of little public consequence to the nation's future. 

Religion sits uncomfortably with the summit's rationalist program and objectives. Inviting them might feel like celebrating the Tower of Babel's opening alongside those who protested its development application. 

Nevertheless, each topic is laden with matters of the heart - issues of ethics and values. 

I'm not worried that religious groups would be excluded from the event, as if to say our secular future requires such a symbolic separation of church and state.  What concerns me is the perception that religious groups have little to say that's of benefit to the community at large. 

The big danger is that religious groups are seen to exist for the benefit of their members only.  It is no surprise then that our institutional leaders are notable by their absence.

At the same time, I'm very pleased to see that people of faith, such as Tim Costello, Roger Beale, Frs Michael Tate and Frank Brennan and Revd Dr Christopher Newell, are present.  Their invitation owes more to their professional competence than their religious identity or institutional adherence.

My sense is that an effective future for us all requires not only good brains but warm hearts too.  I suspect that we don't need more cleverness after two decades of economic rationalism. 

What we need are people with heart, people who care about this nation, its people and its contribution to creation at large.  

I believe that Australia plainly needs more lovers. 

The churches are one of the few places that can cultivate the kind of lovers so sorely needed in our country today. 

Jesus pointed out that the litmus test for discipleship is our ability to love, not our own sense of self-righteousness.    By my reckoning, we need to do two things.

First, we must be able to articulate the Gospel as good news for everyone. 

Too often when our leaders speak, it comes across as narrow, bossy, parochial and irrational. It's the the embodiment of bad news to many. 

To do this, we'd actually need to engage not-yet-believers with something more than our usual megaphones.   The last time I looked, deafness was not the problem.

Second, we need to encourage people to be career-based disciples. Typically, church life suggests that work is a hindrance to the Christian life, a false lord who competes for our allegiance, time and money.  

Unfortunately, such an outlook only empowered the laity to pick up clerical jobs on Sundays rather than to follow Christ deep in their working life. 

It's nice to know that 1000 of the brightest people are planning Australia's future.  It would be better to have thousands of ordinary people living their discipleship by loving this place and its people. 

After all, God sent his Son to restore and not destroy humanity and creation.

 

* Wayne Brighton  is  a lay assistant at St John's Glebe, Sydney,  and is a co-convener for CONVERSE, an interdenominational network for the Emerging Church.