Left, right, wrong?
Given the dire recent history of independent, intelligent monthly magazines in Australia (The Briefing, of course, notwithstanding), we can only wish every success to The Monthly, launched in May last year. Certainly judging by the first few issues, it deserves to succeed. The quality of the writing is superb, the range of subject matter impressive, the production values high. And most interestingly, there seems to be no particular political agenda, other than to “enlighten and entertain”, as its editor Christian Ryan claims.
The December/January issue features one of the fairest and most thoughtful assessments of Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen that I have read in the past five years (and there have been quite a few). The author, Andrew West, takes the time and trouble to try to understand Peter's recent criticisms of the Howard Government's Industrial Relations legislation, and make sense of what to most media commentators is a contradiction: Why does a supposedly ‘arch-conservative’ churchman who is against women's ordination and homosexuality, criticise a conservative government for some of its economic and immigration policies?
It's a fascinating piece because West seems to understand that Peter's view is not to be located within the old, and increasingly discredited, left-right paradigm. “Jensen argues that it is biblical orthodoxy—this absolute fidelity to the Scriptures—which liberates him to be an entirely different, and surprising, man when it comes to politics. It means that when it comes to wagging a finger at governments, he is not one of the usual suspects.”
This is the ongoing challenge, of course, for us as evangelicals—to continue to develop a ‘political theology’ that is not captive to the left-right paradigm, but which thinks out from the Bible to bring God's wisdom to our social, economic and community life.