God Begs to Be Excused from the Preamble

There was a point in time when he could depend on Christians, but this isn’t one of those times. Have these people in Australia missed the point that even in the US, that most church going of Christian countries, they haven’t put God into their Constitution? Americans are almost pathological in their separation of Church and State – for good reasons.

The Pilgrim Fathers - protestant refugees from religious oppression in England – retain a lot of influence still. They understood that you can’t force people to believe, and that to try to do so damages not just the person being coerced, but the coercer. Putting His name in the Constitution is a form of coercion, no matter how minor.

Now God understands that there are some sly arguments going on around the place. That it is being said, with a wink and a nod, "Well, it’s easier to let this one go through to the keeper." That many politicians are saying that it was the Constitutional Convention’s will; that if we oppose it, then the focus groups will be upset, and you know what that means for the protest vote and Pauline Hanson. He’s also looked over the weasel words that are being proposed, on both sides, and he’s not pleased.

The PM wants to include him by saying "With hope in God, the Commonwealth of Australia is constituted …", hardly a ringing endorsement – whose hope? Are the few meant to hope for the many? While Labor thinks it can avoid the problems by saying "Having come together in 1901 as a Federation under the Crown, relying on the blessing of Almighty God…", so avoiding the necessity of belief in the present, shifting the onus back onto those people in 1901. Labor wants Him present in the preamble, but not really accountable. This having whilst not having Him sounds very much like a breach of the third commandment - Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of the Lord Thy God in Vain. - and God thinks his Ministers ought to be up in arms against this at the least.

Yet God knows that he will be present in any preamble. Not because people believe in him, but because Christianity forms the roots of our liberal democratic society by propagating ideas like freewill and individuality.

But he can only be truly present by being invisible. To be anything else is to be not himself, and to violate the system of government, and form of society, that suits him best. And he wouldn’t want to appear in any Constitution like that, not even if half the focus groups in the country promised to go to church every Sunday.

Surely there is someone out there who both believes and understands!