The Protestant Conscience by Dr Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney

Soon after I was invited to give this lecture in honour of Bernard Judd, the phrase ?The Protestant Conscience' presented itself to me as the appropriate subject. In a way, I am sorry that it did, as I have no very certain idea what I meant by it or what I should say about it. But I am certain that it was the thought of Mr Judd which inspired the title, and, if so, what I must have meant was the picture I have of him.

The picture is not based on an extensive acquaintance. He was of a different generation, and our paths rarely crossed. Through his book on R.B.S.Hammond I knew something of his own social interests, but it was really the sound of his voice on radio 2CH which most attracted my interest. It was a good radio voice to start with, deep and resonant if I remember correctly. But more importantly it was also the voice of an Australian immersed in his community, a man who could speak authentically to and for a much wider group than merely the church-goer. Of course, then, it was not merely the sound of his voice, but the authority and good sense with which he spoke on moral and social issues.

In our part of the world, the course of history has left us defeated or at best fighting a rear-guard action on many of the great issues which our ancestors regarded as of vital importance: the censorship of pornography, the problem of abortion, the temperance issue, Sunday Trading and gambling, to state a few. Furthermore we have been fully engaged in safeguarding the churches against virulent secularism and liberalism. We have had little time or energy left for social and political struggles. Indeed, modernity, globalisation and immigration have changed the nature of our society so dramatically that it seems impossible to know where to begin. What we lack is what I think Judd had - a broad sympathetic Protestant constituency able to respond to his insights and appeal to the common moral code which was one of the achievements of the Protestant ascendancy.

I am not saying that he would have been beaten today. One of the things which gave him authority was that he did not merely speak: he acted. The continued existence of Hammondville Homes (now Hammondville Care) is a tribute to his tenacity wisdom and faith. Before government had truly appreciated the needs of aged, Mr Judd was in the field and pioneering a great and enduring work. Of this, his son and successor, Dr Stephen Judd, writes: ?the character of what is now The Hammond Care Group reflects Bernard in large measure: it is strongly Christian, but it is not "owned" by any denomination; it is fiercely independent; and it seeks to meet the needs of those people who are in greatest need - the battlers. Above all it has an unrelenting desire for excellence - not to be the biggest provider of services, but to provide the best.' Dr Judd sees his Father's main characteristics as stickability and dependable endurance, loyalty and independence.

I want to honour Bernard Judd, but it is not my aim to speak more about him today. On the hand, you may perhaps have begun to see why the phrase ?the Protestant Conscience' came to my mind. I want now to explore what we may mean by it, and what use we can still make of it today. In that way we may begin to do justice to his memory.

Why ?Protestant'?

First of all, I have to admit that in our context the word is almost dead on its feet. (Indeed the Guardian has a headline today: ?The strange death of Protestant Britain'). I am not basing this admission on research, but I would be surprised if analysis corrected my impression. Four possible reasons come to mind. First there is the tragic use of the word in the struggles in Northern Ireland. Second there is the distaste for the word in much Anglicanism - our oldest and largest protestant denomination. Third, there is the decline of sectarianism and the embrace of ecumenicalism after the Second World War: as long as Rome was seen to be a social and religious threat, a folk Protestantism survived. Fourth there was the theological and spiritual drifting apart of the protestant adherents, where finally it became more important to be evangelical or liberal, or denominational - say Baptist or Presbyterian (and especially Pentecostal) than protestant. The word came to represent no united group; it had no hinterland.

And yet, there may still be a call for such a word; it may still be worth rehabilitating. To be sure ?evangelical' remains for many of the old protestants their preferred self-descriptor; to be sure, the word ?protestant' may summon into the tent those who they would prefer to leave out. But the word is not merely a negative one against an older Rome; when taken back as it properly should be, to its Reformation origins, it stands for a coherent, powerful and above all biblical, theological position. In an age when what passes for evangelicalism is often fatally diluted, the word ?protestant' has a rugged charm, and may well still be of service to us, not least in helping us to address the world in which God has placed us. Indeed, I want to say that the word must now be shaped not merely by its encounter with Roman Catholicism, but by its encounter with the secular humanism which is our common enemy. It is here that we must join together to "Protest".

More than that, however, it may be some sort of help against a malign modern tendency which is threatening to silence us. In recent times the electoral success of Mr Bush and Mr Howard, together with the advent of the Family First Party has led to much shrill chatter about supposed entities such as the ?conservative right', ?the religious right' and ?fundamentalism'. I myself think that the time is far past when the words ?left' and right' convey anything useful in political terms; but there is a clear attempt on the part of some to label and libel socially aware and active Christians, and so to dismiss them. It may be that exploring the resources available to us in the protestant tradition will help us out-flank such mindless and offensive assaults.

Was Mr Judd right wing, left wing, liberal or labor, socialist or capitalist? I don't know; in fact none of his listeners knew. He supported our democracy, which meant that he honoured those who had been called by God into the leadership of the state. He was equally supportive of, or critical of, governments of whichever party. He was not speaking for a party: he was speaking for Christ, for the battler and for the nation. All I know is that, even if I disagreed with him, he had the capacity to speak for me because he was bringing a protestant mind to bear on the issues of the day.

Why ?Conscience'?

This is a more difficult question, though if it can be answered we can see something of why it may be useful to call ourselves protestants once more. You may already have noticed an intriguing apparent inconsistency in the character of Bernard Judd, and it is that precisely which I am addressing. Here was a man described as exhibiting ?stickability and dependable endurance, loyalty and independence', of fathering a work which is, like him, ?fiercely independent'. Which is to be? The loyal and dependable Judd - signs of a team-player - or the fiercely independent one - signs of a maverick? To modern ears we are dealing with incoherence, or muddle, or unreliability. To which I say, no, we are confronted with a case of the protestant conscience.

One obvious way of examining such a thing would be via the route of comparison with Catholicism. There was an amusing paragraph from sports writer Richard Hinds recently: ?Sydney fans have always been sporting protestants for whom attendance is virtuous but not compulsory -especially on a nice day when the beach beckons. Melburnians are sporting Catholics who believe that they must turn up at the most insignificant club game or risk eternal life in a sporting hell where the only live sport is synchronised underwater bocce.' This is indeed suggestive, but my intention is by no means polemical and I will not engage in that exercise. Instead I am going to turn to one of the great charter documents of the Reformation, Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, and to observe what it says to us not about conscience (on which subject it says nothing at all directly), but the allied topic of Christian freedom. When we see the free man, we will see the man of conscience.

Christian Freedom

The stirring call of Galatians is this: ?It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery' (Gal 5:1). Three monumental truths lie at the heart of this summons.

First, the Bible regards all human beings asa morally and spiritually enslaved. To Paul's mind, sin is a universal fact meriting judgement and death. More than that, sin is an active force seeking power through religion. It will even use the God-given religion of the Old Testament to pervert and enslave us. The old mediatorial structures of that religion, the Law of Moses, are taken by sin and turned to the quest for power. They seek to justify the self by adherence to them and they seek to dominate the world through punctilious, tiresome and divisive religious observance. That which we imagine gives us spiritual power is in fact that which yields bondage - first the bondage of the endless round of a religion of outward display; second the bondage of a destiny of death, for no-one can truly keep the prescriptions of the Law. The religions of the Gentiles are worse; they preform the same enslaving function and do not even have the merit of being given by God.

Second, in Christ God has opened the path of human freedom. In Christ, the curse of the Law has been borne on our behalf. Even the Gentiles, against whom the curse of God's Law has fallen more heavily than against the Jews, have now had that curse dealt with. That is why, when Peter succumbs to pressure and draws back from eating with the Gentiles, Paul sees this as an assault on the cross itself. In Christ, there is redemption from slavery; the slaves to the old have become the Sons of God. The Spirit comes equally to the Gentiles as to the Jews as a sin positive that all are the children of God and may approach him not on the basis of worldly religion with its reliance on legal regulations and its obsession with the creation as a sphere of access to power, but purely on the basis of what Christ has accomplished.

Third, there is the paradox that we have been freed in order to serve. Having freed us from the curse of the Law and its dominance as a means of religious empowerment, Christ enables us to walk by faith. The faith-alone which saves us is the faith by which we now seek to please him. In brilliant words, Paul sums it up as ?faith expressing itself through love' (Gal 5:6). It is not as though faith only saves when it is filled with love: that is a way of smuggling back in the old slavery. But neither is it as though the Christian is at rest; the heart of the true Christian is restless with love. The law is now embraced as an instrument by which we may find what it is to love God and love our neighbour; not to empower ourselves - for that is the way of death - but as a response to the sheer act of God's grace in which he saved us despite our iniquity, through Christ. We no longer have a vested interest in reducing the demands of God on us; we have a delight in seeking more and more to fulfil the demands of God on us, since we are saved not be works but by grace.

This is true human freedom. It is to fulfil the meaning of our own creation as human beings by being busy and active and committed to the good works which God prepares for us each day. It is to be fuelled - I can't think of a more dynamic expression - to be fuelled, not by the hope to save yourself, but by the apprehension of God's grace. As Luther says on Galatians 5:6, ?Idle faith is not justifying faith'.

?When we see the free man, we will see the man of conscience'. The conscience of the free man is clear, because he belongs to the Lord into whose hands he has committed the final word over his life, and the Lord has died for him. At the same time the conscience of the free man is utterly subservient to the Master, Jesus Christ who has purchased him by his blood. As Paul says elsewhere, ?I care very little whether I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.' (1 Cor 4:3,4). In short, the conscience is only of any use to us when it is shaped by the word of God and obedient to that word.

Luther's use of Christian freedom

Mention of Luther reminds us of the search for the Protestant conscience. Like the Apostle, Luther was an advocate of freedom. Here, unforgettably, is how he summarised the matter in his great tract on Christian liberty:

?A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.

?A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.

We are perfectly free because all things, even suffering, serves our salvation. We are perfectly dutiful servants because that is what true faith will make us as it is filled with love: ?Faith finds expression in works of the freest service, cheerfully and lovingly done, with which a man willingly serves another without hope of reward; and for himself is satisfied with the fullness and wealth of his faith' (74). Not surprisingly in the context of the Reformation period, Luther is mightily struck with the way in which the Pauline teaching makes impossible the distinction between grades of Christian. For him, ?we are all equally priests', since all have equal access to God through Christ by faith, ?worthy to appear before God to pray for others and to teach one another divine things' (64, 65).

From this insight a grand revolution was to ensue: the day of the lay Christian had come. The lay person had equal rights and equal (though not identical) obligations with the ordained; the work of the lay person in the world was just as much ?unto God' as the work of the cleric or the ?religious'. This struck at the heart of a hierarchical system in which the lay person related to God indirectly, as it were, through the offices of the church and its ministry. This was the beginning of lay Bible reading, of lay emancipation, of the famous ?protestant work ethic', of the experience of church as fellowship, of (eventually) the growth of voluntary associations for social ends.

An experience of mine immediately on becoming Archbishop illustrated for me how comprehensively we have lost this insight in the community as a whole. On being asked a question about asylum seekers at a press conference, I suggested that Mr Howard had better listen to God on the subject, or words to that effect. In speaking like this, I was trying to avoid the appearance of a cleric giving advice, of ?the church' speaking for God, as though all Mr Howard has to do is negotiate with a Christian leader and he has negotiated with God. I wanted to say that as a Christian layman Mr Howard has the same access to God that I have, and the same revelation from God, namely the Bible; I wanted to say that he is responsible for seeking out the mind of God and cannot cast that responsibility on me.

None of this was understood! Rather, I was heard to say (I think) that Mr Howard should listen to me as a representative of God on earth. My blow for freedom and for conscience was perverted. However, speaking of Mr Howard leads me directly over the centuries from the Reformation to Australia and the present political scene, via an interesting book on the history of the Liberal Party, Judith Brett's Australian Liberals.

The loss of the protestant conscience.

I cannot begin to do justice to the subtlety and importance of Brett's arguments. What she does is to remind us of an almost forgotten world, a world in which Protestantism shaped the imagination of large numbers of people. She sees in this Protestantism vital factors determining the beginning of what we now call the Liberal Party, but, of course, having a far wider significance than that. At the heart of it all is the picture of the ideal protestant type: an individualist with a strong sense of duty to the nation and to others. Here are some of her insights:

?The great majority of Australian Liberals were Protestants, and, even when they were not, the virtues on which they based their claims to govern were Protestant virtues. Australian Liberals were independent, they were loyal, and they did not pursue group-based sectional claims.' (35). She observes that, ?The British Liberalism on which the Australian Liberals drew had as Protestant history?it was not concerned with freedom from religion, but with freedom to follow the religion of one's conviction, and this meant dissenting Protestantism.' (41)

Of course Protestantism contrasted itself with Catholicism. In the mind of the Protestant, the danger of Catholicism was its collectivist tendency, in which the individual and the individual conscience before God was submerged. ?For Catholicism, with its roots in the premodern rural world, the individual relates to God as a member of the community, whereas for Protestantism the individual seeks and establishes his own relationship with God?For Catholicism to leave the community, to be excommunicated, is to lose connection with God, but the Protestant must always be prepared to defy the community to find God.' (55)

Brett sees the Protestant as a citizen, trained for leadership in the voluntary associations so typical of Protestant life, a person who takes responsibility for himself or herself, a person with an evangelical concern for the world. For such people, citizenship was not, as it has become for us, a right conferred by the state, but ?a capacity of individuals on which the polity depended' (63).

Let me say, in case I am misunderstood, that I am not arguing that the protestant is a natural-born Liberal. Indeed I suspect that there was a great deal more Protestantism in the foundation of the Labor Party that is commonly recognised. Do not imagine that you know how I vote in elections! I am simply using Brett's evidence to try to establish the nature of the Protestantism which was once so important in Australia and which now seems to have disappeared. Brett writes, ?In the 1950s the dominant associations to individualism were independence, self-reliance and responsibility as they had been for at least the previous century.' She quotes R.G.Menzies: ?The greatest element in a strong people, is a fierce independence of spirit. This is the only real freedom and it has as its corollary a brave acceptance of unclouded individual responsibility' (177).

Now, however, as she points out, we live in a totally different economic and philosophical climate. The individualism of an earlier generation was individualism with a social conscience. It meant a sturdy self-reliance accompanied by a sense of service for others. Organisations such as the Liberal Party still use the rhetoric of individualism but the whole concept has been radically altered. ?The spread of economic rationalism was accompanied by a libertarian elevation of the value of personal liberty, particularly in regard to how one spent one's income.' (176). ?In basing their political philosophy on the concept of the individual, Australian Liberals drive their foundations into the shifting sands of individual subjectivity, all the while believing that the are on the bedrock of solid bluestone foundations' (178). Protestant individualism has become secularised and hence ego-centric and rights-obsessed.

In my view the problem began with the Menzies generation or even before. They still retained a Protestant view of the world, but they had lost the gospel of freedom on which it was based. Ethics without its religious base will flower for a little while, but it cannot survive an onslaught. The common Protestantism which had seemed so powerful and solid in the 1930s was in fact unable to offer any resistance to the turmoil of the 1960s. It was doomed. Now there hardly remains either the ethics, or the stories which supported the ethics - great Protestant mythic stories such as the defeat of the Armada and the confusion of the Gunpowder plot: all, all is gone. Now, as the Guardian points out, even a royal marriage gives way to a papal funeral - an inevitable choice. The late Pope stood against the forces which folk Protestantism capitulated to: the relativism, libertarianism, individualism and materialism of western culture. The spiritual and moral vacuum is everywhere apparent.

The Protestant Conscience

What then, in our day, would the protestant conscience look like? Let me say at this point that I am raising these matters for discussion. This lecture is not a political manifesto; it is not a declaration of intent; it is not a polemic against the Roman Catholic Church; it is not a covert way of soliciting votes for any political party or any program of social action. But it seems to me that as Protestants we have resources which are relevant to a body like the NSW Council of Churches and relevant to the society in which we live. It is these I wish to point to and reintroduce into debate.

The way I would put the matter is this. Owing to its apprehension of the gospel of freedom as exemplified by the epistle to the Galatians and the Protestant Reformation, the protestant conscience has two leading characteristics.

First, it is a lay conscience. That is to say, it insists that the lay person is in direct relationship with God and has the responsibility for hearing and obeying the word of God, even when the accredited teachers may be saying something different. The Christian in public life may consult his or her pastor for advice. But the Christian is independent, free of all direction except the direction of conscience through the word of God. At this level, even the clergy have ?lay conscience' since the clergy are not mediatorial. This is why we may rightly speak of a proper ?individualism'; of the ?here I am, I can do no other' of Luther. There is a resolve here, and a desire for uprightness, which will resist the blandishments of the age, and the mindless majority, as well as the cajolings or directions of the institutional church.

Second, it is a responsible conscience. Its individualism is never self-centred or rights-obsessed. On the contrary, it is outward looking, responsible, activated by love. At this level it is worldly rather than mystical. It looks clearly and strongly at the world of men and women and seeks to play a part in its affairs with the sort of priorities which we saw in Bernard Judd. We certainly must not reduce all such social involvement to politics as though only by playing that game can you make a contribution. I suspect that over the years history will record that men and women of this outlook have played an enormously significant a positive role in the lives of their communities at all sort of levels. In fact, I think you can see now why I said that for him to appear to be both a team player and a maverick is no muddle at all. The protestant conscience led him to be both.

I am talking about the wowsers, aren't I? A measure of their impact is the power they had to evoke such abuse. Their issues were things like pornography, gambling, alcohol abuse, tobacco, abortion, Sabbath observance. At first it may seem terribly old fashioned, until you realise that their social concerns were right on target - we are still grappling with the malign results of the loss of their battles forty years ago. The most recent debate concerns the last remnants of the ?protestant Sunday'. But they never only worried about such things - their impact was positive, not merely ?negative'. They were actively concerned with prisons and with children at risk, with indigenous people, and with the aged and with marriage preparation and dozens of other causes. I suspect that the protestant conscience may have had a lot to do with the nature of the public service as a great serving organisation. In any case, their concerns arose from and engagement with society and a vision for what a society should and could aspire to.

Which brings me back to the ?religious right' and the ?fundamentalists' and the ?conservatives'. I conclude with remarks.

First, if ?protestant' is to mean anything any more, it will have to be by an initial return to the Bible and the reformation. Not, of course, a slavish adherence to the Reformation - that would not be Protestant. But we are weak theologically and divided denominationally. We need to return to these sources for intellectual and spiritual refreshment.

Second, if you love your community and your nation and are concerned about its physical, moral and spiritual health, a revival of the gospel remains its most pressing need. It is useless to talk about the protestant conscience when there are no protestants. Evangelism is our first social duty. But it must be a united evangelism. We protestants are too divided; we should love our existing unity in Christ and cherish it - and advance the cause of Christ through it.

Third, for myself, I cannot envisage a protestant conscience which as yet demands its own political party. I certainly cannot agree that we must all vote one way. It seems to me that our fundamental commitment is to the great democracy in which God has placed us, and there is freedom enough to support one or another or neither of the parties as such. I am not opposed to Christian parties on principle, but I need to be convinced that they are good for the nation as a whole. I certainly cannot see why it should be thought that the range of interests typical of the protestant conscience down through the years should be categorised as right wing or left wing. I suspect all that that means is that at various points they do not fit in with the wishes of the permissive libertarians who have had so much say in the running of the country since the 1960s.

But that leads me to this final point for us to think about. Clearly I am concerned about the effects on real human beings of the social and ethical revolution of the 1960s. But what are we to make of the economic revolution of the 1980s and all the consequences which have flowed from that? Most recently there has been task, for example of the demise of the weekend. Have we protestants given sufficient thought to this revolution? Do we think it has been a social success? What do we make of the social health of contemporary Australia?

Different protestants may well give different answers to these questions. But surely they should be addressed from a biblical point of view and without fear or favour. Let us refuse to accept the other labels so quickly bestowed on us, but be willing to accept he label of ?protestant' as long as it stands for the biblically shaped conscience, prepared to be independent and yet utterly committed to the Lord and to the society in which we have been set. To this, Bernard Judd remains an eloquent witness.