John Anderson (former deputy principal of Australia) speaks about how his Christian faith affects his life and decisions. The following interview conducted by Matt Prater from History Makers Radio in Brisbane, Australia October, 2005.
Matt: We're talking to former deputy Prime Minister of Australia. Welcome John.
John: Thank you Matthew, it's good to be with you and I appreciate the chance to communicate to your listeners.
Matt: Firstly John, we're talking today about the SU's1 Funlight dinner. Tell us about your passion for chaplaincy.
John: Well, I've supported SU in QLD for 4 years through these fund raising dinners even though I'm not a Queenslander. I have a great admiration for what SU does, you know most of us are fortunate enough to be in a position where we've been able to love and support our children and we've done our best even though none of us have been perfect parents, but the reality is that there are many children in our society with real needs and SU goes out there at the coal face. Many of the chaplains are people who, in a different occupation, could have made a lot of money, could have lived comfortably, could have done the things so many of us could have aspired to but they chose to go and mix, sometimes in very tough and difficult circumstances, with children in need. They are people who can offer hope and direction and I think that matters, and I also think SU frankly offers the rest of us a bargain in the sense, that by making a financial contribution we get a tremendously valuable safety input at very reasonable cost. It's a lot cheaper than picking up the pieces when the children become delinquents later in life.
Matt: Now John, a lot of people in Australia might or might not know that you have a Christian faith. Do you want to tell us a little bit of how you came to have that faith?
John: I didn't come from a church-going family but when I was a teenager I had a teacher at school who was in my opinion a man's man, someone whom I liked and respected and someone who was a Christian and I asked him one night what he believed and why. I came away convinced of the truth of the gospel.
To be honest I backslid pretty quickly from that initial conversion, but at university I was studying the history of our culture and I came to the view that secular humanism is not just empty, its actually frighteningly empty. When you look at what mankind has done, they've tried without God or deliberately excluding God to create a perfect society on earth according to their view. The results have been horrendous and disastrous and I felt that I could not live without a relationship, without knowing who was in control, without there being anyone in control, so I felt that I had to return to my faith. The most outstanding example, of course, is the horrors when we try to create what we think is a perfect society on Earth. The Second World War was secular humanism at its worst. Fascism said there is no God, we're not accountable to anybody higher, we'll try and create what they said the Third Reich was and by the way we will just slaughter millions and millions and in fact it ended up being 60 million people on the way through. Man without God to me is a terrifying prospect, personally and collectively.
Matt: Now there are a number of Christians involved in Australian politics. What's it like being a Christian in Australia in the political arena?
John: There are Christians of many different levels of conviction and theological perspectives but of those who I believe can really be said to have a central understanding of the role of the cross in their lives there are a significant number, and I think they fellowship with one another and relate well. And can I say this, we sometimes hear a debate about the separation of church and state. In Australia, institutionally, I think we've got it about right. The government does its thing and churches are free to do their thing but they often cross by membership in a democracy. That is a healthy and good thing, and to those who say Christians should leave their faith behind when they go into politics or the cabinet room all I can say is bunkum! No one can leave their world view behind and the Christian world view has shaped, it's probably really mothered democracy, and has shaped our culture. If you want to pull out some of the Christian greats take out a Wilberforce who fought against the abolition of slavery, take out Shaftsbury who fought for the industrial relations laws that prevented children from being used as chimney sweeps and been sent down mines at the age of 10 and not been given an education, take out the role of the church in education, everyone forgets it was the church who started educating people, and you'll soon recognise that to a very great extent the things we treasure, the things we take for granted, really have been the work of the Christian greats!
Matt: Now let's talk about church - how important is your local church to you and your family?
John: Oh it's very important. My wife and I and our children attend a very small congregation mainly because we live in an isolated part of the country, but it is important to us and we take the opportunity to fellowship there on Sundays. When we're in Sydney we go to a bigger church and we enjoy and value and recognise that it is important to fellowship when and wherever we get the opportunity to enjoy it.
Matt: Tell me about any favourite books you might have read, is there anything that has inspired you in your life?
John: The book is plainly the Bible, I believe it was written for us by the Creator and Sustainer of all life, so it is in fact the handbook for life. There have been many others, J A Packer, Loving God, would be one that comes to mind. I've read recently a book called, the Scottish Enlightenment, on how the Scots invented the modern world and, although it's not written by a Christian, it's packed with insights on our culture and how we came to have the values and beliefs that we did. I mentioned education a moment ago, the first country in the world that said all children should be educated was Scotland. And by a long way the impact that that had on Scotland was massive and it was the churches that asked the parliament to pass the laws to do it. They wanted all children educated so they could read their Bibles, they could grow in wisdom and understanding, and so they could choose their own leaders wisely because the Scots believed that those who governed should only govern, politicians in other words, with the expressed permission of the people.
Another example of the outstanding things that Christianity has given us, and it was centuries before much of Europe ... even England, it was 100 years before they caught up to where the Scots were at, and the result, very influential even in Australia, some of the great leaders in Australia came out of that church based on educational tradition. People don't recognise these things now and that's a great shame. If you doubt my word think of James Cook, his mother and father were Scottish, think of Macquarie, a Scot who gave Australia its first decent governmental arrangements from which the country grew. Think of the economy; John Macarthur and his wife Elizabeth were Scots again and that all came out of a Christian commitment to education. They're valuable things so I've read a lot of political biographies and lot of Christian biographies.
The story of John Newton, that's another book that fascinated me and that I would recommend, Amazing Grace. Everyone sings Amazing Grace, Christians or non- Christians, it reflects when he talks about a wretch like him being saved and the fact that he was an appalling human being who'd been involved in the slave trade, responsible probably for the deaths of very large numbers of men, women and children, then he was converted and went on to lead the fight against the very thing he'd been engaged in.
Matt: Now, if there is someone listening at the moment who may think, OK John Anderson has a very passionate faith in God, and they might be thinking, I'm interested in finding out more about that, what would your advice be?
John: Thanks, there is nothing more important for you to do to decide before you die, really there is nothing more important than in this life and the next and if you're a young person I want to particularly say this, we seem to live in a culture where we discourage young people, perhaps we don't even get them to the threshold in the first point from asking the big question who am I? Is my nature essentially good or bad? Is there a God, if there is, am I accountable to that, if I am accountable to that God, how do I relate to Him? Is there a purpose in life, can I have some direction and fulfillment, how do relationships work, and for the life of me, when we seem to be realising in our society that relationships are more important that the almighty dollar which we worship, it seems to me for too long in this country, no-one wants to live in poverty. Prosperity is a great thing, but I tell you the old saying, that money is a kind servant but a cruel master is absolutely right and we seem to be recognising now that money's not enough, we want more out of life, we want relationships, well go the whole hog, don't sit on the fence. It's an important issue; you ought to ask the questions, you ought to get to the bottom of it. I cannot think of anything more important for any human being than to confront these questions.
Matt: And what about Jesus, you talk a lot about God, but some people mightn't understand how important Jesus is in faith in God. Tell us, what do you think of when I say the name Jesus?
John: Well the Bible makes it very plain that Jesus is God who came to earth in human form, took our wrongdoings on Himself and paid the price so that we could go free. The snag is, that we have to actually believe in Him, and His words were unbelievably provocative and to many, offensive, but He said them, He made it very plain that He was God, that there is no way to God but via Him, and there's no point in me apologizing for it, that is what He said. This man was so influential that His words have to be listened to, he's influenced countless people down through the ages, and you can't dismiss him as a madman, because he obviously wasn't mad, no one remembers madmen two thousand years after they die, he can't have been an evildoer because so much has been done in His name. He was not without influence, lives have been changed dramatically right down through the centuries and still are today, he has to be taken seriously.
Matt: I've also heard that you've been involved in conferences in Canberra with regards to the importance of marriage in Australia and we both know the divorce rate to be skyrocketing. Do you believe in the sanctity of marriage?
John: I think it is very important, and there's a sense in which I think the breakdown of relationships reflects our loss of belief. For me, having the vertical relationship between myself and God restored, I'm then free, but I have a responsibility to get the horizontal relationships right. These are relationships with the people around me, if that makes sense and I do think that relationships need to be seen as a choice people make, you can either choose to be in a relationship or not, you don't just drift into them, you can choose, and having chosen, the second issue is will you commit to them? That's what's lacking in modern day relationships, people won't make the choice and then they won't make the commitment. Well, Jesus made it very plain that He will commit to a relationship with us if we enter into it and never desert us, and it's that same spirit, even if we're not able to do it as perfectly as He does, that we'll bring to that most critical relationship of all, that of marriage. Marriage is about the doing away with the loneliness, it's about the meeting of the deep craving we all have, for deep companionship with others and it's critically important I believe for the secure emotional development for the raising of our children. It does matter, and perhaps one of my fellow parliamentarians has suggested we've had a massive advertising campaign for years now urging people to quit smoking, perhaps it's time we had a national campaign to say don't quit your marriage relationship, the impact on our society economically has been disastrous and socially of course very serious as well. We all know in a perfect world that it doesn't always work, but that is no excuse for giving up too easily, it matters.
Matt: And finally, is there a favourite passage of scripture or favourite quote in the Bible, you'd like to leave our listeners with?
John: Well probably the best known of all really is John 3:16," For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that all who believe in Him might not perish."
1 SU is short for Scripture Union. This organization is responsible for Chaplains in schools and for running camps. The aim of S.U. is to help young people come to know the good news about Jesus.
