A lady in our local area who supports CDP, whom I know from our home Bible study program, rang me concerned about emails she receives from another Christian woman. The emails are extremely racist, contain a fabric of lies designed to vilify Aborigines and Muslims. The lies complain about perceived benefits the governments are giving to both groups at the expense of tax payers which she cannot access. And who is behind these conspiracies designed to disadvantage white Christians? My friend is a sensible woman, who can pick the lies and the racist hatred behind them. Now she never opens any emails from this same source. But she was troubled. She asked: Why are many Christians so racist and so duped by these conspiracy theories?

I thought you may be interested in how I responded, because unfortunately, I have met quite a few such people as I have visited CDP branches and in public meetings and a few who even attend our CDP State Council (including anti-Catholic fanatics). Our party will not attract support from Christians unless we deal with these issues. We must think long term for our Party’s benefit and be brave enough to tackle uncomfortable realities in our membership. Both the major political parties have to do this right now as every newspaper testifies. If we do not face and deal with these issues we will fragment and die. Mark my words right now!

1. Racism has many definitions.

The most common and widely accepted being that members of one race are intrinsically superior or inferior to members of other races. The Macquarie Dictionary defines racism thus: the belief that human races have distinctive characteristics which determine their respective cultures, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule or dominate others. In his book Systemic Racism: A Theory of Oppression (Routledge, 2006). Feagin examines how major institutions have been built upon racial oppression which was not an accident of history, but was created intentionally.

Today, as in the past, racial oppression is not just a surface-level feature of this society, but rather pervades, permeates, and interconnects all major social groups, networks, and institutions across the society. Feagin’s definition stands in sharp contrast to those definitions that assume racism is an “attitude” or an irrational form of bigotry that exists apart from the organization of social structure.

In most cases, ethno-national conflict seems to owe itself to conflict over land and strategic resources (think Kosovo today). In some cases ethnicity and nationalism were harnessed to rally combatants in wars between great religious empires. Notions of race and racism often have played central roles in such ethnic conflicts. Historically, when an adversary is identified as “other” based on notions of race or ethnicity (particularly when “other” is construed to mean “inferior”), the means employed by the self-presumed “superior” party to appropriate territory, human chattel, or material wealth often have been more ruthless, more brutal, and less constrained by moral or ethical considerations.

2. Religion and Conspiracy theories.

A conspiracy theory usually attributes the ultimate cause of an event or the concealment of such causes from public knowledge, to a secret, and often deceptive plot by a group of powerful or influential people or organisation. Many conspiracy theories imply that major events in history have been dominated by conspirators who manipulate political happenings from behind the scenes. They believe only a few people know what is really happening in the world. This is a typical sign of a warped mind.

I have sometimes tested such people by asking when they have elaborated what they know, “So it is something like David and Goliath?” They always reply, “Yes exactly. I am a nobody, just a humble person, but God has chosen me and revealed this knowledge to me, and I am expected to take these pieces of secret knowledge and go against the rich and powerful who are doing such wrong, and I expect them to fall before me.” That is an excessive sense of self-importance leading to a major delusion. That person is seriously deluded. The danger is that nothing happens, the pieces of secret knowledge fail to slay the giant, and the believer often falls into depression and rejection.

At the moment I have one man emailing me constantly about some of the fanciful theories in The Da Vinci Code who believes the novel is true today; a woman who goes on and on about the new World Order of One Government to rule the world through the United Nations; a man who goes into lathers about the Masonic Lodge running all of the mainline churches and many other activities in society, including that the Department of Education allows witches, covens and occult practitioners in our schools; another who is trying to indict the Catholic church for everything wrong in society; another who spends all his time attacking think tanks like the Club of Rome (with a name like that no wonder they are the secret manipulators behind the banking collapse!) and groups of scientists working on Climate Change. The anti-climate change people have become as bad as the proponents of the ideas of LaRouche, an American conspiracy theorist, an anti-Semite, and leader of a political cult who spent six years in prison for mail and tax fraud but who still guides the economic thoughts of a few CDP members, hence their emails to me.

Some who email are particularly racist with attacks on Aborigines, Jews and Muslims. The victims of earlier generations, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Italians, the Greeks, the Yugoslavs, the Vietnamese and others are apparently now accepted in “our white” society. These writers are obviously mentally ill people. In fact perhaps the majority show signs of paranoia and obsessive and compulsive behaviour. They are mentally sick. Many of these people send to many other people SPAM on the internet. This is junk mail, often defamatory, illogical, beyond normal reasoning and designed to achieve no good purpose.

I have sought to help mentally ill people most of my life. For nearly thirty years I oversaw psychiatric hospitals, worked closely with psychiatrists, and organized hundreds of such people eventually to have successful treatment. On top of this I have spent every Tuesday night for over 25 years training over 3000 counsellors in total to provide counselling to such sick people. Thanks to God’s help, many of these people have been successfully treated and today are in their right mind.

Over the years I have had people seriously believe, and spread among all they knew such conspiracies as the following. (Please do not laugh – this is serious!)

The Deakin Exchange in ACT is apparently a NASA facility disguised as a Telstra centre. While Minister of Science, Barry Jones visited every aspect of the facility with journalists to allow the public to see the theory was absolute rubbish, but the silly conspiracy people just said that proved he was in on it. Calls on the subject were discussed on late night radio for over ten years while I was Board Chair of Radio network 2GB. Most people just laughed at the stupidity of the suggestion, but many believed it, including many Christians. The management just laughed and said that even stupid listeners were good for ratings!

The Naval communications station in Belconnen, also in the ACT, was rumoured to have tunnels running underneath Lake Burley Griffin, New Parliament House, Old Parliament House, the US Embassy, Black Mountain Tower and so on. No search has ever found such a tunnel. This was supposed to be the heart of a world spy network.

Some ideas I find amusing such as Canberra becoming the Capital of a New World Order (One World Government) when we all know not one secret can be kept in Canberra.

I remember while on talk back radio for 17 years I had conspiracy theorists claiming the Apollo 11 Moon Landings were faked by NASA by having secret film sets established in New Mexico. Enthusiasts of this theory claim the astronauts could not have survived the trip because of exposure to radiation, the quality of the photographs was implausibly high, there are no stars in any of the photos, and astronauts never report seeing any stars from the capsule windows. Further evidence included that the flag placed on the surface by the astronauts flapped despite there being no wind on the Moon.

One of the maddest conspiracy theories was that the September 11th attack on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon was in fact organised and orchestrated by the U. S. government. I put this in the category of people who believe that the sewers of New York are occupied by giant alligators who have mutated by living on the sewage of people who have taken so many medications and passed them into their toilets.

I thought I had lived beyond the One World Government who would tattoo a number on every person to control their movements, but when barcodes started appearing on products sold in every store I was told that the barcodes are really intended to serve as means of control by a putative world government, and are Satanic in origin, the barcodes secretly encoding the number 666 – the Biblical “Number of the Beast”.

Every major event is governed by a conspiracy such as the U.S. military caused the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami with electromagnetic pulse technology.

One stupid conspiracy is that Kentucky Fried Chicken makes black men impotent. Ironically, the KFC franchise is actually owned by an African-American.

And remember the millions of Christians who wrote to Procter and Gamble following emails saying that the president of Procter and Gamble went on Sally Jessy Raphael’s television show and declared that the company gives part of its profits to fund the Satanic Church? The mail also states that the company is involved in other satanic and demonic pursuits. There never was such a show, the company president has never been on any of her shows but that doesn’t stop people for the last twenty years passing it on! And what about the Pringles conspiracy? I would not burden your brain with more such rubbish.

Why do good Christian people get so caught up in racism and odd-ball conspiracies?

Because they are often people with a lack of disciplined education.

They have never had to think in a disciplined manner and therefore just accept whatever someone else tells them. They never check before they pass the lies along. Because they are usually not employed and are faced with idleness so fall victim of the “devil who finds mischief for idle hands to do.” It would be much better if they volunteered at the local hospital, made a garden, took up a hobby or did a course.

Because they fear someone else is getting an advantage they cannot get.

It is the fruit of envy. Many anti-Aboriginal and anti-Muslim documents start with untrue statements about the Government funding these ways that the rest of us cannot get, yet we are the ones paying our taxes. Check these for yourself. Ring your local Centrelink manager who will soon put you right. Because they have a poor understanding of Scripture and have never come to grips with the meaning of “The Good Samaritan” nor the implications of Acts Chapter 10.

Because they lack trust in God, thinking they would rather trust their own feelings, prejudices and limitations rather than God’s promises.

Because they distrust consecrated, committed Christian scholars who tell them their attitudes and thoughts are wrong. Because their insecurity, obsessiveness and lack of trust all points to deeper mental ill health issues.

What can we do about it?

Racism has deeply embedded itself into our culture, frustrations with difficulties in life such as unemployment, lower wages, crime and lack of affordable housing is often taken out on the minority ethnic groups. Racism becomes more widespread when times are hard; it is often easier to blame people of other races than to work out why inequality and discrimination exist and how to get rid of them.

Study the Scriptures including Galatians 2:8-9; James 4:1-12; Matthew 5: 38-44; Luke 10: 25-37; Deuteronomy 24:14; John 3:1-21; Matthew 25:31-46; Galatians 3:26-29; and a multitude of other passages.

The human psychology behind racists and conspiracy proponents means they are often attracted to political parties. One leading liberal said publicly recently that his party was full of people he would describe as “nutters.” These people like to have their views heard and the local branch is one of the few places where they would be tolerated. Further, because most of these people are not in employment and have a problem with idleness, they often volunteer to do the jobs every branch needs to be done, and so it is a place where their efforts are appreciated.

This is true also of churches, and these people are attracted to the churches because there they are welcomed and accepted. If you have a Christian political party, you have double reason to have such people with racist and conspiracy views.

How should they be treated?

My guidelines include being welcoming, giving time to listen to their concerns, being accepting of the person while not of their views, and gently trying to lead them into a more Christian viewpoint. But I never ever, pass on their emails to other people. Their views deserve to die.

In the meantime, I would urge all members of the CDP to have a sane and balanced view of these racist and conspiratorial issues. We have been so obsessive about getting into our membership and branches people who are willing to man the poll booths, distribute letter box drop leaflets and so on that we have never faced the point of view that some may be far from being Christian.

Both the Labor Party and the Liberal party have rejected members who have failed to meet their standards and values. So should the CDP. Further, in our keenness to welcome every vote and willing worker, we have no written rejections of these racist and conspiratorial viewpoints, so they can rightly say, they are accepted as attitudes of the Christian Democratic Party.

That is not so. We must ensure our beliefs are completely in line with those of Holy Scripture, proclaim them clearly and put the long term future of the CDP ahead of short term expediency.

Rev The Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes, A.C., M.L.C.

Friday, 29th February, 2008, 9:52 am | Editorials