OPEN LETTER TO CHRISTIANS

ON AUSTRALIAN ASYLUM SEEKER POLICY

July 2014

This letter is an open-hearted appeal for a Christian response to people seeking asylum in Australia. It is a call to church leaders and people to inject a new urgency as asylum seeker policies plumb new depths. For two reasons: one, Australian politicians, including the Minister for Immigration Scott Morrison, and the Prime Minister, declare they are Christian. They make this claim while acting in increasingly brutal ways toward people seeking asylum. The Immigration Minister now declares that his pronouncements define ‘reality’ with regard to boats approaching Australia. He is engaging in a ‘politics of concealment’.  And, secondly, for years church leaders, agencies and congregations have provided pastoral support for refugees, while also protesting the policies imposed on Asylum Seekers. It appears to suit politicians to have the church’s pastoral practical assistance – and even critical pronouncements, which may be readily ignored. Regrettably both major parties appear to share this approach.

Although this letter addresses Christians in Australia, it does not diminish the role played by many Australians of various convictions, who visit detention centres, provide financial and emotional support and legal advocacy, and rally on the streets of Australian cities and towns, as they seek to humanise an increasingly inhumane environment, and declare their welcome for people seeking asylum. Not least are the widespread and insistent voices calling on the Australian Government to honour its legal and human rights obligations.

Have we moved beyond mere pronouncements? Some church leaders apparently think so, and have moved to direct action. They recently occupied political offices in various states. Having been removed by police as trespassers they now await the formal charge. Their protest presses the question whether widespread non-violent civil disobedience is now required. True, that suggestion is at odds with a longstanding church attitude that insists on obedience to civil authorities. There is, however, another robust and longstanding church tradition which insists (following the Swiss Reformer John Calvin) that Christians have a duty to resist unjust rulers and oppose their unjust laws.

During the past century resistance was played out in, among others, Gandhi’s opposition to the British rule in India, and the civil rights movement in the United States led by church people, such as Martin Luther King. In 1930s Germany, the  German Confessing Church leaders published the Barmen Declaration as a means of declaring opposition to the Nazi Government. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was but one of a significant number of German church leaders who believed they must act in the name of a higher authority, namely Jesus Christ. Bonhoeffer continues to press the question of what it is to be in the church, living out costly discipleship. His question recognises that we can remove ourselves from the church.

We are pressed to ask what is required of us in the face of cruel asylum seeker policies in Australia? Is it thinkable that churches in Australia might be led to declare that in these policies a line has been crossed? That those who participate in such brutality have removed themselves from the Christian faith?

No doubt such a step will itself be accused of being unchristian! A couple of examples demonstrate that we are dealing with this not merely as a matter of ‘practical politics’ but as basic church teaching and life (doctrine). Faced with South African Apartheid, the church in South Africa called on the world church to assist it in the struggle. The World Council of Churches declared Apartheid to be a heresy and, in theProgram to Combat Racism, promoted practical action including economic boycotts by its member churches. There we see a church response that does not stop at making pronouncements but develops its teaching to intervene in situations of injustice. Similarly, some years ago, the national Australian Council of Churches invited the World Council of Churches to send a working group to investigate and report on Australian treatment of its indigenous people.

This letter is calling for urgent and radical action which will break through the political silence promoted by the Immigration Minister.  It calls on Christians to speak with a common voice with other Australians – and with Christians around the world – to resist the government’s dangerous and brutal policies.

This is not to understate the pressing and necessary work to be done by the Australian government to respond to people who seek to flee to Australia, and the thousands of displaced people in our region.  It makes church action all the more urgent. Will that action come from the National Council of Churches in Australia, or from the councils of particular churches in Australia, or from coalitions of various church agencies and movements or, especially, from congregations? Perhaps all of these. Certainly, it will also come ‘from below’. In cities and towns across Australia Christian people will gather together in coalitions of opposition to the present brutalising and concealing policies.

These coalitions will then be a prompt to politicians who claim the name ‘Christian’ and seek to act in opposition to the current Australian government actions. Let the discussion here prompt church action, reaching out to politicians and community leaders who want a different Australia from the politics we are now experiencing. Let us all as brothers and sisters in Christ become accountable to one another. As our brothers and sisters in need call for our help, let us all examine our hearts. We must proceed here with great caution, yet utmost seriousness. Is it not urgent, now, to declare that those who craft and implement these brutal and hidden asylum policies are removing themselves from the church and Christ’s gospel of grace?

Drafted by the Revd Dr Wes Campbell in consultation with colleagues

Email: wesncampbell@gmail.com

Tel:       0431 847 278