The rise of the Greens: politics and the supernatural

They have a stance on a number of moral/ethical issues that offend certain religious groups and have the support of others. Nowhere do they deny the existence of a god or promote any sort of alternative theology.

Many of The Greens supporters and members count themselves as standard mainstream religious believers. In an article defending the Greens as being "anti-religious," ACT Greens candidate Lin Hatfield Dodds, a Christian and former national director of Uniting Care wrote:

"There are a significant number of Australians whose values and faith mean that they will support the Greens. There are a significant number of Australians whose values and faith mean that they will support either the ALP or the Coalition. God is beyond human limitations; we should not, and cannot, seek to reduce the movement of God to our own framework of political or moral values."

These are obviously not the beliefs of an animist or even (shock horror) an atheist Communist. These are the musings of a Post Modernist Christian who is wholeheartedly a fan of the supernatural realm of an all-powerful unseen god, presumably the same entity that George Pell and Kevin Andrews worship each Sunday.

Why then does a political party, which does not have overtly anti-religious policies and include among their numbers good Bible believing Christians, receive the bile directed at them by the likes of Kevin Andrews and George Pell? What is it that so offends these defenders of the faith and their fellow travellers?

Unlike atheists who, according to the faithful, wander alone, unloved and unnoticed in an amoral wasteland of non-belief, the Green movement has managed the unimaginable, the unthinkable.

The Greens have presented what appears to be an alternative to religious superstition that is palatable, logical, clear, positive, focused and most frightening of all, appeals to the spiritual without using a contrived theology based on death, guilt and fear.

A spiritual belief system without postulating an all-powerful god of morals is a frightening concept to the rigid Theo-political mind. Andrews and Pell can hardly be blamed for comparing the Green movement to Communism given their 1950s political worldview and late Iron Age religious beliefs.

However, they can rest easy for now, but not forever. No political party in Australia would dare to be overtly anti-religious fearing the loss of votes that, as a left-leaning party, they probably didn't have anyway.

Religious leaders will continue to claim to speak for a huge non-existent flock and will continue to run their supernatural charities, investments, enormous property portfolios, lobby groups and enjoy their organization's tax free status while moralizing and pontificating to the very tax payers that are forced to keep them in business.

Do the "Forces of Righteousness" really have anything to fear from the Greens? Is their anxiety unfounded? The answer probably depends on how future events unfold.

The Greens could stay focused and united and continue on their upward path. Alternatively, they could lose their way and like the Democrats, sink into oblivion. At present it would be fair to say that Pell and Andrews should have a nice cup of tea and relax with a Good Book.