May 2005

In his address to Catch the Fire Ministries on the Australian National Day of Thanksgiving, Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson gave thanks for Christian Hope. Here are some excerpts from his speech:

“We need government but we need more than government, we want it to be good government. History is replete with examples of bad governments, of bad leaders and the evidence that countries or societies with bad governments. So the great problem is of course is how to keep good government. How do you make it effective, keep it effective and keep it fresh, keep it effective, keep it decent?…

We should give thanks to our forebears who with clear Christian conscience sought these freedoms for us often at terrible costs to themselves. 200 years ago our forebears were keeping slaves. Worst than that, they were capturing slaves and trading them around the world. And it was Christian conscience, spearheaded by William Wilberforce … He’d been a slave trader… Wilberforce never left the back bench but he was converted. He became a believer and he thought ‘Parliament is no place for me’… he was about to leave but he felt drawn to talk to Jon Newton. He records in his diary that he crept down there under cover of night hoping that no one would see him go and talk to this old evangelical – but he did. And as he talked to Jon Newton he became convinced that he ought to pick up on Jon Newton’s repudiation of the evil of slavery which he himself had been engaged in – and the rest is history. First the slave trade, then slavery – abolished by William Wilberforce heading up a clear crusade that changed the world and backed by many believing Christians who did not give up until that social revolution had been completed.
Lord Shaftsbury was another man of clear Christian conviction and conscience, who recognized that it was inherently wrong to send the children of the poor down mines when they were eight or nine years old and make them work there 12, 13 or 14 hours a day and started that whole social revolution that ensured a decent equality for all. It was all a product of Christian conscience in our culture. And we should be deeply thankful for it and we should not ever let go of their heritage and their memory or their example, let alone the things they gave us.
But let me come to my second point – this conundrum between our capacity for good and our capacity for evil… how difficult it can be. Why is it difficult? What’s the problem? Why is it hard to secure and maintain good government and a fair, just and safe society? Why can we so clearly see the difference between good and bad – why when we can see it, is it so hard to secure and maintain the good? The Christian creed gives me an answer to a question that for me will not go away.
That solution, the Bible tells us, is Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that, for all of our desire to go our own way, God so loves us that He still chooses to personally engage with us if we are willing. He loves us, you and me individually, so much that He provides a way back. A narrow and winding path that not all will find – but which nonetheless is there. And that of course is found through Jesus Christ. We are told in Revelations 3 that Jesus Christ stands at the door of our hearts and knocks and we are told very clearly if we hear Him and if we open the door, He will come in. If we open the door He will come in. And Paul tells us in Romans that the blood of Christ on the Cross washes away our wrong doing and sets us free, if we will but believe, in fellowship with God. He will credit to us the punishment His Son bore in that awful death on the Cross even though He was innocent and we can go ‘scot’ free.

We have been forgiven, we are able to and must seek to forgive others. Evil and strife and hunger and hatred can be overcome, can be conquered. Our need, our craving to be loved and accepted without condition – and that is at the heart of every man’s and woman’s desire, no matter how lovely or unlovely we might be – can be met. There is hope, there is hope, real hope now and in the future. Let us be truly thankful”.