Josh Frydenberg addressed the media and onlookers at Bondi Beach yesterday. The former Federal Treasurer is a Jewish Australian, and one who has been raising the alarm over anti-semitism these past two years. Yesterday, he delivered a must-watch speech. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr Frydenberg’s words are remembered in 100 years, either as a catalyst for change or as the warning that went unheeded. It wasn’t political grandstanding. There was pain in his voice, as well as anger and frustration. He gave a clarion call for Australia to rid herself of this ancient evil: antisemitism.

“Prime Minister, can’t say those words, Islamist ideology, if you can’t speak them, you can’t solve them.”

The gaslighting and bullying over the last 2 years have been staggering. Even as the blood congeals at Bondi voices are casting doubts and questions. When Dr John Dickson made a comment expressing anger at the persistent ‘tradition of violent jihad’, one prominent Sydney religious leader suggested he shouldn’t make such a link. On Tuesday, ABC’s Laura Tingle had the gall to suggest that the attack was not motivated by religion, even though the terrorists made that claim themselves with an ISIS flag draped over their car, and with Federal investigators confirming links with Islamic hate preachers in Western Sydney. 

There is one word our Prime Minister has used, and it is being uttered by many politicians, religious leaders, and ordinary Australians alike is, ‘evil’.

It is evil. Name it. The targeted slaughter of Jewish men and women at Bondi Beach was an act of evil. There are many evils in our streets and suburbs, and yes in every human heart. There is something particularly abhorrent about what took place on the evening of 14th December. It is an ancient and wicked sin, and one that the world has yet to put to death. Even the murder of 5 million Jews in the holocaust was not enough to end this vile.

I would like to address the concept of evil. Why do we turn to this word, and what do we mean by it? 

Calling out certain attitudes and actions as evil is more than a gut reaction. Evil is a moral category. It requires there to be a standard of goodness and righteousness. Indeed, for evil to be anything more than a sociological label that is used to explain how we feel about bad events, evil requires there to be a good God who defines what is right and true. 

I grew up in Melbourne of the 1990s, and then in Sydney and Melbourne in the 2000s. In the society in which I walked, learned and worked, there was an underlying quiet, yet smug insistence from people too smart for themselves who alleged evil doesn’t really exist. I recall an article published by the ABC during the pandemic by a Zen Buddhist psychologist who argued that while death is not very pleasant but it’s little more than part of nature’s cycle.

Geoff Dawson asserted, 

“If one’s view of the world is based on science, we are not special, we were not placed here by a God to be the custodians of the Earth (and if we were, we have let the Almighty down big time!) and like all other species, we will have our place in the sun.

We will die out, and other, more adaptable, life forms will take our place.

The myth that we are somehow special and will continue to live forever as a dominant species is based on a deluded human-centric form of existential narcissism.

We may wring our hands and our hearts may ache at the rapid destruction of wildlife that is happening right now before our eyes, but we never seem to seriously consider that we may go the same way.”

 I guess Geoff Dawson is trying to be consistent. I quote him because his philosophical consistency is both revealing and repugnant. If all that exists in the universe is matter and mathematics, and there is no God, it is difficult to suppose there is ultimate right and wrong.  At most, what we have are little rights and wrongs, where we agree some things are unacceptable, but only because there is a group consensus, not because there is a universal truth. 

And yet we know that cannot be the case. Evil isn’t defined by a poll. Evil isn’t just a label adopted to soften the blow of what are uncomfortable but ultimately meaningless events. But to maintain the objective and universality of evil, we need a counterpoint of objective and universal truth. In other words, we need God. And not only God, but a God of utmost righteousness and goodness.

The Philosopher Alvin Plantinga explains,

”Could there really be any such thing as horrifying wickedness [if there were no God and we just evolved]? I don’t see how. There can be such a thing only if there is a way that rational creatures are supposed to live, obliged to live … A [secular] way of looking at the world has no place for genuine moral obligation of any sort … and thus no way to say there is such a thing as genuine and appalling wickedness. Accordingly, if you think there really is such a thing as horrifying wickedness (.. and not just and illusion of some sort), then you have a powerful … argument [for the reality of God.]

Without God, notions such as love, compassion and grace also lose their moorings and essential status. Without Divine orchestration, what is kindness and compassion other than an evolutionary product to help us survive as a species? They aren’t inherently good and necessary; they’re cosmic luck. They’re chromosomal, chemical and cultural byproducts of evolutionary processes.

Again, we know that such thinking is nonsense.  It’s not only cognitive dissonance, but moral and existential dissonance. We know justice and compassion are more than ways of describing our preferences, just as we know evil isn’t simply a way of categorising things we hate or are afraid of.

Our world requires a God who is above us and outside the universe: A Divine Being who defines right and evil, justice and compassion and who has shaped the universe to have and need these things.

We can categorically say Islamic Jihadism is evil. We can confidently say NeoNazism is evil. Why? Because existing outside ourselves and yet imprinted into the image dei is the God of love and goodness. 

Like Sydney, Melbourne enjoys a large Jewish population. Melbourne is home to more Holocaust survivors than any other place in the world, other than Israel. Between my home and the city stand many Jewish schools and synagogues. My kids regularly played sports with and against local Jewish schools, such is the vibrant Jewish community in this part of Melbourne. 

But Melbourne, and perhaps this is also true of  Sydney,  has relied upon hubris and false piety for far too long. How different we are today from William Cooper. A Christian man and Aboriginal leader, William Cooper stood in solidarity with the oppressed. With foresight, Cooper understood the unfolding evils in Germany and spoke up when most world leaders remained silent. On December 6 1938, William Cooper led a march in Melbourne to the German Consultant, in response to the infamous Kristallnacht, and condemned the “cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi government in German.”

For all our pseudo-sophistry and boasting in our cosmopolitan and cultural greatness, travelling in our DNA are the same iniquities that have tainted all nations of old, including what was once considered the most ingenious and advanced culture in the world: Germany.  We Aussies love to sing our own praises, with this gleeful myopia that sometimes shares more in common with Nero than with  William Cooper.

This week, I am reminded of one of the books that both Christians and Jews hold as Holy Scripture, the book of Jeremiah. The prophet spoke in a time of immense upheaval and uncertainty. 

Months ago, I reflected on the growing expressions of hatred echoing around Melbourne, 

“The sad reality is, I don’t know if our fragile cultural cladding is able to resist the kinds of attacks on Jewish people we are now seeing. I think the jury is out, and that should cause us great concern for the future.”

Today, Jewish families around Australia are less certain about tomorrow. They are less confident and free. Their warnings and fears have become reality. That ought to bring great sadness to our land and shout a loud warning. 

And yet there remains an unwillingness to learn the lessons of history. We struggle to use the right words or even understand them, because for so long we have stripped the world of ultimate realities and truths in exchange for personal preferences.

Sunday, 14th December, saw evil in its brutal force; religious beliefs fuelling hatred and mass murder. Whether it is the result of ignorance or fear, or complicity, we have failed the Jewish community in Australia.

The words of Jeremiah resound loudly today, and yet that doesn’t have to be the end. 600 years after Jeremiah’s day, an elderly Jewish man lived in Jerusalem. We are told,

 “Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him”

His eyes saw Jesus and he exclaimed,

“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,

    you may now dismiss your servant in peace.

For my eyes have seen your salvation,

    which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:

a light for revelation to the Gentiles,

    and the glory of your people Israel.”

One thing I do know is this: if Simeon’s assessment is true, Divine consolation can be found. As much as we need evil to be more than a gut-wrenching sensation, we need a consolation that can plumb the depths of despair and pain and bring healing. He is who I am thanking God for at Christmas. And I pray my fellow Australians, even those who disagree with me, will also come to know this Divine consolation.