Against the backdrop of anti-religious vilification laws and as leader of a supposedly secular nation, Prime Minister John Howard says this in his 2004 end-of-year address to parliament:

"It remains the fact that the Christian religion is the greatest force for good and progress, and the dignity of the individual in this nation".

What is important here is not so much what is said but what isn't. The implication of this, and similar political stirrings by President Bush in the US and Prime Minister Blair in Britain, is simple: God is on their side.

Let's compare this to the message Mr. Blair gave to a grieving and attentive world just hours after Thursday's bomb blasts in London. "Our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world," he said resolutely, breathing erratically.

"Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilized nations throughout the world".

It's no accident Mr. Blair slips in the word "extremism" as he describes his foe while emphasising the civility of his friends, just as it's no accident President George W. Bush tells a joint session of Congress and the American people after 9/11, "Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them". In this light, it seems only natural that our Prime Minister would link Christianity to progress and individual dignity, ahead of other religions.

The suggestion made by sanctimonious spiels such as these is that to follow a god different to the god favoured by the political leader, is to coalesce with the nation's enemies. Untrue? Maybe. Divisive on the grounds of faith? Sure, but when using God helps win a majority, who cares?

In America, the political clout of the religious vote is well-documented. One in seven voters in the 2000 US election identified as members of the Christian right and of this sector, 79 per cent voted for Mr. Bush¹ .

Mr. Bush himself makes no secret of being a born-again Christian and others in his Cabinet, Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft and Don Evans included, are similarly candid about their born-again Christian status.

It's a card the Republicans are happy to play. Ahead of the 2004 election, Bush's chief political advisor, Karl Rove called for greater support from the Christian right. To win, Bush had to draw 4 million more evangelicals to the polls than he did in 2000, Rove said.

In response, clergy members in social conservative states such as Ohio attended legal sessions advising them on how to talk about the election from the pulpit,²pastors handed out voter registration cards and Christian groups mailed out millions of how-to-vote guides.

By comparison, the separation between church and state in Australia is still pronounced. However, recent activities of politicians from both sides, at state and federal levels, suggest that that distinction is set to become increasingly murky.

Politicians at home downplay the influence of the religious vote, deriding it as "exaggerated", yet more than twenty parliamentarians turned up at the Hillsong (Pentecostal Christian) annual conference last week, full of praise.

That praise wasn't reserved for God. When NSW Premier Bob Carr, a noted agnostic, took the stage, he gushed. "I like the idea of Christianity shorn of its medieval accretions. I like the idea of each believer reading the Bible and finding his or her path to salvation. I also like the spontaneity and informality of Hillsong's worship," Mr. Carr said. "It's actually very Australian."

It is small wonder politicians are turning up en masse at the Hillsong conference. This year, the five-day event attracted thirty thousand delegates to the SuperDome. These worshippers are not just constituents; they come value-added. It is a congregation of aspirational voters from Sydney's outer suburbs where marginal seats reside, and what many are of the under 25 age-group, famously difficult to engage.

Hillsong hails the youth market with more than its religious teachings, some of which have drawn criticism from the Anglican and Catholic churches for preaching consumerism by way of the prosperity gospel, that is, the message that God wants Christians to prosper.

Hillsong has other lures. This twenty-one-year-old arm of the Assemblies of God (AOG) church replaces stiff wooden pews with stadium seating; stained glass windows with television screens and hymns with Christian pop music you can dance to. The annual conference offered religious karaoke and horizontal bungee.

The influence Hillsong has demonstrated on Australian music charts must excite politicians watching the group's pulling power. In 2004, the album released by the church's own record label Hillsong Music, 'For All You've Done' became the first of its kind to reach number one on the ARIA charts. The album has sold over four million copies and is distributed overseas.

So it is the sycophancy that began when Mr. Howard agreed to open Hillsong's main complex in Baulkham Hills just after the Bali Bombings in 2002, and continued with Treasurer Peter Costello's pre-election visit to the Hillsong annual conference last year, carries on.

In his buttering up of the gathering, Mr. Costello said: "There's a definite movement and it's having a wonderful effect on the lives of our young people and on our society". Not to mention his party.

In the last Federal election, Hillsong member, and Liberal candidate, Ms. Louise Markus won the western Sydney seat of Greenway, a traditionally safe Labor seat. In another affirmation of the Liberal Party, the former leader of the AOG churches, Andrew Evans, started a new party just before the election. That party was called Family First. It promptly gave its preferences to Liberal and unexpectedly won a Senate seat in Victoria.

Two other Family First Senate candidates, Joan Woods and Ivan Herald, failed to win seats despites appeals in a Hillsong publication for members to pray for them.

The AOG churches' support of the Liberal party is not going unnoticed. In March, 2004, the Liberal Party awarded Hillsong a regional partnership grant worth $82,000. In the coming financial year, the party promises another Hillsong offertory of $672,064.

Uniting Church Minister Dr David Millikan believes he knows why Hillsong has found harmony in the Liberal camps. "Hillsong says that if you come to Jesus, then Jesus promises you a prosperous life, you'll be healthy, you'll be wealthy, your marriage will flourish, you'll have a good sex life, your business will flourish and you will be a prosperous winner in this society," he said in an interview with the ABC for the 7:30 Report.

"Now, that is the religious version of exactly what the Howard Government is saying to us... So in that sense, Hillsong is the Howard Government at prayer."

Meanwhile, Labor is busy playing catch-ups. After Mark Latham snubbed an invitation to attend last year's SuperDome event, Shadow Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has moved quickly to repair the party's image in the eyes of believers.

The result is what has been labeled Labor's "God Squad", a Faith, Politics and Values working group with a core of 15 Labor ministers from varying denominations and including some non-believers.

Mr. Rudd, who hosted the working group's first meeting, told Channel Nine's Sunday program: "My fear is that maybe the Family First party is saying to those folk, "Look, if you really believe in God, you've got to come over to the Libs, don't stick with those heathens in the Labor Party".

The problem with any party aligning itself with God, is the restriction it places on the development of policy.

Dr Marion Maddox, author of God under Howard: the Rise of the Religious Right in Australian Politics, said Government attempts to stifle criticism from churches has left Australia vulnerable to fundamentalist politics. Now "a highly individualised version of Christianity" has emerged in place of public religion and space for democratic participation has been curtailed, she said.

The too easily neglected flipside to believing you act politically on behalf of God is that there will always be others who act to satisfy a different god. Whether that political act is to invade a country, or bomb a trade centre; with some interpretation, there's likely to be a god who condones it.

Rather than spinning policy to mirror the values of a particular religion, our politicians should create policies they have faith in. After all, we elect politicians to represent us, not a god of their choosing.

Footnotes:

1. Kellstedt, Lyman A., Corwin E. Smidt, James L. Guth, and John C. Green. 2001. 'Cracks in the Monolith? Evangelical Protestants and the 2000 Election.' Books and Culture Magazine/Christianity Today.

2. Cooperman, A & Bell, T. 2004, 'Evangelicals Say They Led Charge For the GOP', Washington Post, November 8, Page A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32793-2004Nov7.html