During his time in the top job, Morrison gave a nod to God in 120 broadcast media appearances, doorstop interviews, press conferences and ministerial statements. According to the online bible of PM transcripts, Morrison did spare “Satan” from the public purview. Luciferian references appear reserved for Morrison’s appearances at Pentecostal gatherings, including the finer details of “Satan’s plan” that he revealed at Margaret Court’s Victory Life Centre last weekend.
But other members of the Coalition have been less sanguine. Trawling through government documents during Morrison’s tenure, Satan does have his moments in the sun.
On matters of the economy, then Liberal MP Jason Falinski simply could not help himself: “Lucifer himself could not create the temptation that the member for Rankin creates every time he stands up and lectures this House about economic management!” Then opposition finance minister Jim Chalmers had the gall to criticise the Coalition on matters of money. Falinksi said to hell with him.
Then there was former senator Mitch Fifield, who appealed to Satan to “get thee behind me” after singing a line from the Cold Chisel tribute song “Ita”.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Satan surfaced in discussions around the Coalition’s contentious religious discrimination bill. When pressed as to why a faith-based school would employ someone “actively campaigning for the devil”, Chris Watts from the Independent Education Union of Australia concluded that “it would seem to be a pretty odd choice” to employ Satan. There were no arguments from the chair of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, former senator Ian Macdonald: “I think we’re in rabid agreement on that.”
QAnon supporters continued to try Satan on for size, up to and including the 2022 election campaign. Leading the sin-searchers was Morrison’s close family friend Tim Stewart (Twitter alias: Burn Notice @burnedspy34). Stewart’s and QAnon’s fixation with Satan recalls an earlier decade when Satanic ritual abuse allegations were all the rage, invariably involving adults dancing in hoods while (allegedly) subjecting children to satanic rituals. The conspiracy community clapped their hands when Morrison made reference to “ritual” sex abuse in one of his first speeches as prime minister in 2018. It was a national apology to victims of child sexual abuse, but for Morrison it doubled as a rite of passage.
The QAnon narrative goes that governments around the world are part of a “cabal of Satan-worshipping paedophiles”. Retrofitted to Australian politics, the conspiracy theory has state and federal politicians moonlighting as child traffickers in Melbourne and Sydney. Throughout the election, fringe minor parties made repeated references to the “tyrannical” agendas of the elite and the need for government to be purged. Morrison’s latest performance as a fill-in pastor should go some way to assuage anxieties about excising the satanically-minded in government.
Let’s end with a verse from an old testament. In 2000, then prime minister John Howard had the good grace to take a call on Townsville radio from someone who identified as “Satan the Devil”. It clearly made an impression. In 2004, Howard professed on air that “I’m the great Satan of Australian politics” (albeit “in the eyes of a section of the Australian public”). When Morrison landed in office, he took a real (fig)leaf out of Howard’s playbook. God had a plan for him (or so he — not He — said), but Scott was always better suited to the satanic side of the fence.
You would think that 5 hundred years after the Enlightenment most of us would have woken up to the scam that is organised relgion but it seems to still have legs.
So-called evangelicals or happy clappies are hardly mainstream Christians.These people appear to despise those less fortunate than themselves.
mainstream Christian accept and act on the command to help their neighbours and actively operate in general charity area.
I query your use of the designation “christian”. They are, one and all, believers in the Old Testament, with a veneer of Jesus thrown over them as disguise.
How did these men become a government running Australia?
The christian ‘religions’ have a 2,000 year old tradition of subverting the minds of innocent children for their own ends, financial, spiritual, governmental and most abhorrently, sexual.
It is no wonder they have been able to hang on – even the blatantly corrupt and probably certifiable new organisations such as the Moonies, the Mormons, Scientology etc. can, with the promise of certainty, rope in the emotionally desperate.
It comes down to the ability to lie…Smirko and His Brethren were following in the tradition of the Early Christian Church wherein those Fathers of the Church, Eusebius, Clement , Jerome, John Chrysostom, had no compunction concerning lies and were all adept at justifying deceit/lies for the good of the poor sinner.
Smirko et al. obviously believe in such, as it will set the people of Australia on the path of righteousness of the Lying Nasty Party
As John Chrysostom, he of the Golden Mouth, given the name as he was so eloquent in his preaching. is also credited in leading the mob which carried out the second and final destruction of the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World,
“…For great is the value of deceit, provided it be not introduced with a mischievous intention. In fact action of this kind ought not to be called deceit, but rather a kind of good management, cleverness and skill, capable of finding out ways where resources fail, and making up for the defects of the mind … “
“…And often it is necessary to deceive, and to do the greatest benefits by means of this device, whereas he who has gone by a straight course has done great mischief to the person whom he has not deceived…”
Chrysostom, Treatise On The Priesthood, Book 1.
So when we think of Spin Doctors let us recall those early ones they who set the standard, The Doctors of the Church
If the God who created man is the same one that created Morrison then its Satan by another name.
But Satan punishes those who have committed evil. So that means he does the seedier side of god’s work that god could not be bothered doing. That makes him a good being does it not?
So God outsourced or privatised what he lacked the will or courage to do
Ah..Men – and goodnight to Scott and Shaman.