Last month, the Queensland Police Service announced it had classified a shooting carried out by Nathaniel, Gareth and Stacey Train in the town of Wieambilla as a “religiously motivated terrorist attack”.
“The Train family members prescribed to what we would call a broad Christian fundamentalist belief system known as premillennialism,” deputy commissioner Tracy Linford said at a February 17 press conference.
Linford said police had reviewed more than 190 statements and recorded interviews, the Trains’ online history (including a YouTube channel littered with Christian symbolism and quotes as first reported by Crikey) and even Stacey’s personal diary.
Weeks later, ASIO director-general Mike Burgess said the spy agency had worked with Queensland police and agreed with its conclusion.
“We believe the shooting was an act of politically motivated violence, primarily motivated by a Christian violent extremist ideology,” Burgess said during his annual threat assessment.
Despite both agencies’ teams of experts assessing the Trains’ motives based on extensive evidence — much of it not available to the public — prominent Australian Christian figures have come to a different conclusion: the Wieambilla shooters were not really Christians.
Family First-backed candidate in the March 25 NSW election and former Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) managing director Lyle Shelton said the police’s determination was “quite offensive”.
“There is nothing in Christianity that justifies the murder of police or anyone for that matter. It is not possible to be ‘Christian extremism’ because what occurred was not Christian,” he posted on Facebook.
His successor at the ACL, Martyn Iles, said attributing motivation for the attack to “the most popular eschatology in evangelical and Pentecostal circles” proved that “we’re living in clown world”.
Iles, who has since left the ACL, called on Linford to show that premillennialism permitted violence, before linking the designation to historical Christian persecution: “In ancient Rome, the authorities blamed Christianity for the evils of their day because they either hated it, or were totally ignorant concerning it. I guess history can repeat.”
Organiser of last weekend’s Christian political conference Church and State Dave Pellowe argued that Islam or belief in climate change would be more likely to cause violence than premillennialism in an article titled “Queensland Police just called all Christians ‘terrorists’”.
“Such a link would be easy to draw, as it is with false religions whose founder was a murdering war lord terrorist with a track record to back up his explicit incitements to violence,” he wrote for his Christian online publication The Good Sauce.
“There is more basis for prepper terrorism in the climate alarmism dogma preached by leftists, globalists and elitists than such orthodox Christian doctrine as premillenialism, so why isn’t the lying harlot media (LHM) blamed for this tragedy? That’s at least somewhat plausible.”
Writing for Australian Christian news site The Daily Declaration, Strathfield NSW’s Cornerstone Presbyterian Community Church associate minister Mark Powell challenged whether the Trains’ beliefs were even fringe.
“Believing that Jesus is going to physically return to earth or that we are living in the last days is not ‘Christian extremist ideology’, but traditional, mainstream belief,” he wrote.
The “underlying” problem with the classification, according to Powell, was that some professions are not familiar with the Bible: “My observation has been that politicians, those holding public office, and especially journalists, are generally illiterate when it comes to the teaching of the Bible.”
The Christian Right is correct: “the Wieambilla shooters were not really Christians”.
But then, neither are the Christian Right.
Ooooooh! Cutting!
Spot on kmart60
This captures my thoughts perfectly.
I would argue that. In my opinion, they absolutely are Christian as much as in Australia we consider radical Islam to be an issue of Islam.
Absolutely!
They call themselves Christians while deliberately ignoring everything Christ said. If they were genuine followers of Christ, they wouldn’t hoard and worship money or persecute people who don’t follow their rigid rules.
Every cult has its loonies. The LNP is being taken over by these people. Think about that before you cast your vote.
These dingbats are exhorting their followers to “Save the Liberal Party”………………………..
………..presumably by employing a junior Perrottet to run their branch-stacking operations.
That’s one way to hasten their demise.
Christianist, a neologism created by Andrew Sullivan a conservative, gay, Catholic author and blogger in 2003 concerning the then President, Dubya, The Faux Texan and his push concerning a “Faith Based Administration”, as attempted recently here in Australia with Smirko, The Happy Clapper and his Disciples.
“I have a new term for those on the fringes of the religious right who have used the Gospels to perpetuate their own aspirations for power, control and oppression: Christianists.
Interestingly Sullivan first used the word “Christianist” in 2003 to describe Eric Rudolph, a US religious terrorist, convicted for a series of anti-abortion and anti-gay-motivated bombings across the southern United States between 1996 and 1998, which killed three people and injured 150 others. Rudolph also planted the bomb at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.
Sullivan has extended the argument, with such being akin to Islamism viz. al Qua’eda, Taliban
“Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. …It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.”
“But any pretense of a religious foundation for Christianism breaks down on many of the issues Christianists now consider their highest priority — cutting social services, blocking access to health care, lowering taxes, undermining public education, repealing restrictions on the ownership and use of firearms, endorsing harsh law enforcement methods and restrictions on the right to vote in communities of color, defending the Mexican border, and closing the door to refugees, to name a few.”
Agree, and one can go back to Reagan years to see the start of leveraging Christianity, especially abortion and Evangelicals, as an electoral strategy.
Paul Weyrich at the (now Koch linked, popular with Abbott, Truss et al.) Heritage Foundation, not only spoke about littering the world with right think tanks & influence, but supported Jerry Falwell & the ‘Moral Majority’ to start opposing abortion in an effort to create a conservative voter bloc, to mask unpalatable economic policies a la ‘Kochonomics’.
In more recent years we have observed the outcomes, taking over not just the GOP but SCOTUS, attacking education curricula, banning books, controlling corporations e.g. Disney by DeSantis; there are several contemporary writers who explain well including Anne Nelson ‘Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right’ and Katherine Stewart ‘The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism’.
And… locally we have a new manifestation, in addition to platforming of conservative, cultish & Evangelical Christians by the LNP in recent decades where e.g. Melbourne Liberal Party branches were stacked with Mormons etc., the ‘architecture’ is being promoted in QLD according to the Brisbane Times ‘‘Long march’: The right-wing Christian plan to infiltrate politics’:
‘An Australian right-wing Christian conference has been urged to flood the country’s Liberal parties with members to gain long-term influence and ensure conservative religious candidates “prevail” in every branch.’
Agree, and one can go back to Reagan years to see the start of leveraging Christianity, especially abortion and Evangelicals, as an electoral strategy.
Paul Weyrich at the Heritage Foundation, not only spoke about littering the world with right think tanks & influence, but supported Jerry Falwell & the ‘Moral Majority’ to start opposing abortion in an effort to create a conservative voter bloc, to mask unpalatable economic policies a la ‘Kochonomics’.
In more recent years we have observed the outcomes, taking over not just the GOP but SCOTUS, attacking education curricula, banning books, controlling corporations e.g. Disney by DeSantis; there are several contemporary writers who explain well including Anne Nelson ‘Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right’ and Katherine Stewart ‘The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism’.
And… locally we have a new manifestation, in addition to platforming of conservative, cultish & Evangelical Christians by the LNP in recent decades where e.g. Melbourne Lib branches were stacked with Mormons etc., the ‘architecture’ is being promoted in QLD according to the Brisbane Times ‘‘Long march’: The right-wing Christian plan to infiltrate politics’:
‘An Australian right-wing Christian conference has been urged to flood the country’s Liberal parties with members to gain long-term influence and ensure conservative religious candidates “prevail” in every branch.’
Agree, and one can go back to Reagan years to see the start of leveraging Christianity, especially abortion and Evangelicals, as an electoral strategy.
Paul Weyrich at the Heritage Foundation, not only spoke about littering the world with right think tanks & influence, but supported Jerry Falwell & the ‘Moral Majority’ to start opposing abortion in an effort to create a conservative voter bloc, to mask unpalatable economic policies a la ‘Kochonomics’.
In more recent years we have observed the outcomes, taking over not just the GOP but SCOTUS, attacking education curricula, banning books, controlling corporations e.g. Disney by DeSantis; there are several contemporary writers who explain well including Anne Nelson ‘Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right’ and Katherine Stewart ‘The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism’.
In more recent years we have observed the outcomes, taking over not just the GOP but SCOTUS, attacking education curricula, banning books etc..
There are several contemporary writers who explain well including Anne Nelson ‘Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right’ and Katherine Stewart ‘The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism’.
And… locally we have a new manifestation, in addition to platforming of conservative, cultish & Evangelical Christians by the right in recent decades where e.g. Melbourne Lib branches were stacked with Mormons etc..
Meanwhile, the ‘architecture’ is being promoted in QLD according to the Brisbane Times ‘‘Long march’: The right-wing Christian plan to infiltrate politics’:
‘An Australian right-wing Christian conference has been urged to flood the country’s Liberal parties with members to gain long-term influence and ensure conservative religious candidates “prevail” in every branch.’
Excellent comment, Hayward! Loved it
Sullivan doesn’t sound like much of a conservative.
That is only because the people that are calling themselves “conservatives” are in fact not so.
They are RWRNJ, the second R being for Religious.
On what planet does anyone have to demonstrate that Christianity is capable of inciting murder? It has largely been the modus operandi of the Christian faith and its various sects (often on one another) for a couple of millenia
Christchurch massacre was committed by a White supremacist Christian who was obsessed with the idea of non- Christians taking Christian lands.
That sound like a plot from the 1930s Marx Brothers’ movie “A night at the Opera”: “The party to the first part shall be known as…” 😉
Oh, yeah! Lyle Shelton with his “there’s nothing about Christianity that endorses the murder of… anyone for that matter”.
That one had me scratching my head. Hasn’t he ever read his bible? And then Martin Iles claims that actually Christian terrorism is only called that because unbelievers haven’t read their bibles. And anyway, what about the Koran?
There is a lot of waffle coming from Shelton, Iles & co., that one can easily argue isn’t there?
Growing up, my fave bits of the bible were the goriest parts. Like in Judges, when Ehud stabs the fat king “…and the refuse came out.”
Or Deborah, who hammers a tent peg through the skull of a sleeping man (who thoroughly deserved it of course…she was doing God’s will!!)
err, that would be Jael, in the “Song of Deborah” – Judges. 5:24–26.
See also Judith & Holofernes.
Thanks Munin!
Deborah didn’t sound right, but I’d typed it, and I couldn’t be bothered looking it up 🙂
I think people use religion as an excuse because they want to murder.
I think the Christian Religion – the right movement in particular – motivates people to hate and murder.
It seems to encourage those partaking to flights of fancy about being the chosen ones, special and righteous in actions against non believers.
It’s time these so called religions were taxed as businesses and bigotry silenced.
I find the Views of Shelton and the ACL as offensive as well. Their attitudes and belief systems are in contradiction to the message of Christ who stood with the marginalised and demonstrated acceptance of people on the margins. He was scathing of the religious of the times who were hypocrites placing themselves above others. It was these scribes and Pharisees those with considerable power who organised for Christ to be killed because he challenged their hypocrisy. This same story continues today. Fundamentalism and literalism is a danger in all its extremes
Indeed . That they’ve managed to make the main teaching of Christianity to be a blanket right to discriminate against whoever you want, whenever you want, is really quite remarkable.
It is really interesting with these supposed Christians how ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ has now become something like’ do unto others whatever feels right, but they have no right to do unto you anything you don’t feel is right’.
It’s “do unto others before they do it unto you”.
Part of the gospel of Republican Jesus.
Very well put kris and priviledged. As a christian I am fed up with Lyle Shelton and others like him trying to make Christianity as somehow being opposed to lefty causes like climate change and social welfare. The opposite is true for reasons you outlined above and re climate change Genesis makes clear that God put humans on this planet to look after it, be stewards of it.
What I liked about the quotes from Shelton and the other Christian loons was how in attempting to explain away the Wieambilla terrorists and point out how different they were from themselves they plainly demonstrate how their extremist beliefs are pretty much the same.
I particularly enjoyed the attempt to portray “we’re just waiting around for the end of the world, which we’re expecting any day now, and the second coming of our Messiah” as perfectly normal. You mean, there are people out there who aren’t just hanging out while waiting for the Antichrist to show up? Probably heretics or witches…