Was chatting with a mate a few days back and we both agreed. The product of the Destiny Church may be a couple of good things.
When you see the discussion blogs and the newspapers reporting around election time, there seems to be a bit of a panic on among liberal progressives (LPs, or what I like to call the old 'Left'. If you're still a dyed in the wool socialist you might need to update your street cred, and we're talking about more than an ipod here). The source of this panic is the apparent willingness of voters world-wide to let things like Christian morality and values define how and why they think.
Sure it's not always that simple, some people are anti the things Christians like to harp on about because they've thought through the issues and made a judgement. But, it seems that more and more these days people are letting their leaders make the big decisions and then just towing the line. So when Dubya says, the terrorists are in our country, they'll do anything to 'get ya', people believe him. Now I say 'it seems more and more' because I really don't things have changed all that much.
The ANZAC weekend has given us a great example of how, even way back when, people were following along with the things they believed, and the way the things they believed were more often than not told to them by self-interested or just plain crazy leaders. 'Our young men' as the media was loving calling them went to war because they believed they had to. You can guess that many of these blokes had absolutely no idea what in the hell was happening in Europe, but they went over there and died to defend the myths of the British Empire.
Liberal progressives, when they see the Destiny Church potentially panning out for the life of Brian, tend to become concerned that people aren't actually thinking for themselves but are being fed limited and potentially bigoted information about our society. Even worse, through access to the ballot box these people have the potential to influence the progress of New Zealand society as a whole. Concerning? Sure, but only if you are opposed to the type of morality people like Brian represent.
And that I see as a limitation on the behalf of the LPs. They're too jumpy when bumped. Actually, IMHO, this type of easily identifiable morality is a good thing, because it's completely predictable. Let's look at it on face value, when you get a bunch of Christians politicised, they're not going to talk about fiscal policy, the arts, the debate over public funding of athletes and its relative worth to society as a whole. You can't see Brian sitting down with Janette and talking Green perspectives. You can't see a Destiny march demanding more military spending and reconciliation with Howard.
But, if you listen carefully and then edit out the unimportant filler words in between you'll get something like “blah blah homosexuals blah not me mate blah. Blah blah blah abortion blah rights of children blah. Blah blah blah family values blah blah.” Or something to that effect. Where it becomes a problem is the point at which all this programmed rhetoric gets to parliament and can't be reasoned with, but that's another issue.
What me and the conversation buddy agreed was that this type of programming is worlds better than no moral programming at all. And for some of the types of people who get involved in evangelistic churches, that's a very, very good thing. Frankly, would you rather have a National Front member with no qualms, or an ex-kinderfascist who's been convinced that looking after family, staying out of the lawman's way and going to church on Sunday is a good thing?
The gang member example is an extreme one, but there's plenty of people out there who just want moral guidance, and places like churches are more than happy to hand that stuff out willy-nilly. The nugget of this problem seems to be that secular LPs seem to find this stuff troubling, or even frightening, because the Church-going community has opposing views to their own.
What I wonder though, is it democratic to resist this type of programmed morality when it is so actively consumed by the public? One of the things about our imperfect democracy is that at its core it is nothing more than a shouting match. People get elected because they say things loud enough to get a big audience that subsequently votes for them.
LPs can't compete in the audiences of places like Destiny, and end up being ignored. A bit like trying to sell John Farnham to Helen Clarke. But, if the Destiny audience is there, and listening, what right do LPs have to deny the validity of their choice to be moral drones? If the leaders of these drones get power, then LPs have no alternative but to continue to try and win back enough of an audience by whatever means necessary.
It all boils down to this, Destiny and their ilk are predictable, so if you're losing audience to them, maybe it's because 'the people' actually want that type of society. Sure, as a LP myself I see moral drones as needing of a desperate slap into the 21st Century, but you can't force people to think what you want them to. Instead, accommodate their medieval politics, and get on with the business of making their arguments obsolete.
Elitist? Probably, but I'd like to think it's more 'avant garde', and the drones will catch up in their own good time.