The Bible is a mainstay of Western life

When former prime minister John Howard described his chances of returning to Liberal leadership as like "Lazarus with a triple bypass", how many Australians had any idea what he was talking about?

Bible literacy is low in Australia, and if cultural forces have their way, it is destined for further decline.

The controversy over the Bible Society's "Keeping It Light" video campaign was certainly about ­marriage equality but also about whether the Bible has anything worthwhile to contribute to the discussion. For many Australians, it is as dead as Lazarus was before Jesus stepped in.

Social media last week was peppered with comments such as "why care about that old book?", "it's all fairytales" or, more constructively, "the Bible's teachings are evil". Sometimes these opinions are offered by people who quite clearly have never set eyes on chapter and verse, let alone given the Bible due attention as a significant text of Western tradition and culture.

The use of the Bible in public discourse is a very contested matter. And it should be, because its teachings are anything but anodyne. The Bible presents specific, if complex and debatable, perspectives on human nature, the quest for justice, the struggles of domestic life, sexuality and social obligations - along with plenty of tips on how to do business, whether to pay tax, and the qualities required in a leader.

I would argue for the value of some biblical input in most public discourse.

But this is not a new idea. We already have "Good Samaritan" laws, drawing on one of Jesus' most famous parables. Geoffrey Robertson QC identified it as one of the keys to the historical development of international human rights. And we adopt biblical inflections in questions of policy and law all the time, when we talk of "rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" or "innocent until proven guilty".

The Bible's influence is everywhere already, even if it is often unrecognised.

And yet it is possible to take a somewhat neutral approach to how the Bible is deployed. The Bible Society has been negotiating this balancing act for more than 200 years, a kind of Switzerland among the churches and in the public square.

We have worked well across different denominations, from Roman Catholics to Presbyterians to Seventh Day Adventists. If the Bible is front and centre in your church life, we can work with you. We have hosted discussions on the nature of the Eucharist, the relevance of Old Testament food laws, or the treatment of refugees, all without landing one particular view, other than this: the Bible is the place to start and end your thinking, and people will come to different conclusions.

The summary position of old for Bible Societies was to present the Word, "without note or comment". Originally, this connoted something like "without footnotes that might annoy the royal family", but as a principle it has had lasting value. It has meant that Bible Societies have often sat close to the seats of political and ecclesial power; whoever the ruler of the day, the Bible will be close to them, simultaneously supporting and critiquing their every move. Governors-general are sworn in on it, for example.

When Victorian parliamentarians arrive for work, they glide across a beautiful mosaic floor of the vestibule that holds in place Proverbs 11:14, "Where no Counsel is the People Fall; but in the Multitude of Counsellors there is Safety." Or Queenslanders ascend the steps to the Legislative Assembly Chamber, to encounter Psalm 127:1 in the decorative glass windows: "Except the Lord build the house, they labour but in vain that build it. / Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."

The Bible has almost always been an instrument for free speech. Where the Bible has been freely available, a society has usually become more tolerant, more progressive and better off. This is admittedly sometimes hard to believe, especially in the light of terrible abuses of power by the church or Christianised political movements. But usually their transgressions are in fact transgressions against the teachings of the Bible, and over time history works that out. The teachings of the Bible bend the long moral arc of the universe in the right direction.

At the moment, presenting such a view can sound a bit like suggesting VHS tapes are still the way to go. Public sentiment seems to have drifted, in some cases charged, into post-Christian territory, especially in the areas of personal and sexual identity. What was not long ago the "mean and median" view on such matters is now presented as peripheral and dangerous. That explains why prominent figures such as chief executives of large companies would take a strong stance, petitioning government for change. And why an IBM executive such as Mark Allaby, who does not join this movement, can be publicly "outed" and his company challenged to take action on him.

But even in the face of this new activism, the same deeper questions remain to be addressed. What is the moral basis of marriage? What is sex for? Not to mention other pressing topics such as refugees, tax reform, work and human dignity, questions about the beginning and end of life.

This is where the Bible still deserves to be part of the discussion. It's not an old VHS tape; it's electricity. It's still charging the debate, notwithstanding all the other sources of knowledge that now complement it in various areas.

As the philosopher Jurgen Habermas wrote: "Christianity has functioned for the normative self-understanding of modernity as more than a mere precursor or a catalyst. Egalitarian universalism, from which sprang the ideas of freedom and social solidarity, of an autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, of the individual morality of conscience, human rights, and democracy, is the direct heir to the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love.

"This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual critical appropriation and reinterpretation. To this day, there is no alternative to it."

Time may reveal that ignoring, belittling or opposing the Bible is a fruitless exercise for a society that values freedom, individual rights and social care. These things sprang from its very pages, and it is not at all clear that they would have emerged otherwise. China, Korea, many African nations and much of South America are all realising this. Europe is starting to see what it has lost. Australia is already, constitutionally speaking, "humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God". Can we bring it Lazarus-like back to life into public discourse, without fear or prejudice?