Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Annual Hillsong Conference at the Sydney Superdome is well underway at the moment. There has been quite a number of mentions around the blogosphere recently about it. Like previous years, the conference has been drawing many people to it. It seems a lot of politicians are at the conference too. The Age has interestingly described the phenomenon as "The political religious bandwagon". Apparently Federal ministers Alexander Downer, Kevin Andrews and Peter Dutton were there on Monday night, and so was the New South Wales Premier Bob Carr. It was announced that the strongest applause went to the Treasurer Peter Costello, who said that the strength of God is the strength of Australia.

Just as I was pondering how the separation of state and church was affecting the spiritual condition in France, it's really interesting to see a number of Australian politicans attending Australia's biggest church. So does that mean there is a union of church and state?

3 comments:

Christop said...

Unfortunately, I find it hard to believe that they aren't there for political reasons.

Susan Barnes said...

Yes I think they are only at Hillsong for political reasons, but I can remember a time when politicians weren't even interested in the Christian voters. So I think it is great that they now recognize that Christians voters can influence politics.

Garth said...

The Sunday program covered this in much length last Sunday morning (most Christians would probably have missed it getting ready for church)....but it was their cover story showing the rising interest that Hillsong and politicans is rousing.