Bondi Beach

Australia needs to look deeper to find ‘social cohesion’

/ MurrayCampbell

Can’t we just get along?

In the 1970 film ‘Waterloo’, a British soldier’s cries are heard over the din of battle, ‘how can we kill one another…how can we? Why do we? Why? Why?…”

Why can’t Australians all get along?

Hatred and discord are woven into the human condition. The original imago dei didn’t contain such stains, but ever since the Great Fall,  humanity has carried and desired personal gain through demeaning the other and yes, even through bloodletting. The history of the world is less peace interrupted by violent moments, as it is, continued iniquity that finds momentary rest by the grace of God.

Almost everyone is talking about the State of Australia. The massacre of Jews at Bondi Beach on December 14th has forced us to ask questions that most Aussies are ill equipped to even frame, let alone answer with resolve. There is widespread shock, there is tremendous grief, along with anger, fear and yes, and still with much gaslighting. 

Can’t we as a society just get along? 

Clearly the answer is no. It should be yes, and I imagine the average Aussie longs for the answer to be yes, but we are falling far short of this thing called, ‘social cohesion.’

There are three simple observations that I wish to make here. They are not new or novel. Others are far better qualified than myself to speak to this topic. And even here, many of my words are ones that I’ve previously offered up in public discourse.

The 3 points that I wish weave together are these:

  1. Government can’t bear the weight of creating social cohesion. 
  2. Take note of the scholarly work of Christopher Watkin. He has much wisdom to offer on the subject.
  3. Come home to Christianity. 

One year ago and a week before Christmas, the Victorian State Government proposed ‘social cohesion’ laws. A watered down version of the Bill was adopted by Parliament in April 2025. At the time I suggested that ‘social cohesion’ when it’s attached to government and to laws has a touch of the Machiavellian about it. One doesn’t know whether to think it’s more like George Orwell or Monty Python! 

No doubt this is a testing time for any government. There are pressures applied from all kinds of directions, and at times this leads to inaction or delayed resolve. As we have seen for more than 2 years now, this has given more oxygen to antisocial, and especially, antisemitic voices and violence. Antisemitism is an indignant on the moral and spiritual state of Australia.

Australia has never been heaven. We have never been ther perfect country, but we have witnessed developments over the past decade that are injurious and bring grief to many. We are less peaceful than we were. We are less inclusive and kind. There is more personal and social distress and with little sign of a turnaround. This is evident across the country, but Melbourne is Australia’s protest capital (not a title to boast about). Ever since 2020, when the government turned a blind eye to certain marches while slamming others, every Jane, Nguyen, and Bob has seen fit to grind city streets to a halt. Not a week goes by without banners and angry faces blocking traffic. 

According to the Bible, from which we owe the fundamental notions of civil society, governments have a responsibility to protect its citizens and to punish evil doers (Romans 13:1-6). This requires the careful and just creation of laws and their reasonable enforcement. It’s not a coincidence that the Apostolic framing of Government responsibilities is accompanied with an injunction for citizens to pay taxes. The purpose of taxation is largely tied to enabling government to do this  double edged sword duty of protecting and punishing effectively.

Government inaction is no longer an option. Thankfully NSW’s Premier, Chris Minns, seems to realise this and is moving beyond empty rhetoric and thin pieces of legislation. Even a Muslim Mayor in Western Sydney has taken decisive action to close a hate factory where one of the gunmen was fed his lies about Jewish people.

We have too long sacrificed cohesion at the altar of diversity. Diversity, properly defined is a beautiful thing which adorns a healthy society. I thank God for the tapestry of multi-ethnicism that has given strength and flavour and wonder to Australia. But as we have deconstructed big T Truth and other axioms, we have lost the ability to acknowledge that some ideas are counter productive and even dangerous.  We can practice pluralism while recognising not every worldview is equally valid or good.

If we think that our society is beyond and above 1928 Germany, we are suffering from a greater dose of egomania than I thought.

How can the Federal Government not call for a Royal Commission to investigate the terrorist attack at Bondi Beach on December 14? This wasn’t an isolated event, but the culmination of more than two years of government sitting on their hands while Jewish Australians were attacked in their synagogues and cafes and homes. And while genuine hatred was proclaimed and promoted on our city streets every week. As Stephen Mcalpine has noted, there is a directed line from the Sydney Opera House to Bondi Beach. 

Even the slaughter of 15 Jews at Bondi Beach hasn’t been enough to completely silence the keffiyeh wearing mafia. So much whataboutism and justifying and excusing continues even before the bodies of the slain were laid to rest. Of course,  their right handed sibling, neo nazism with men in black, is equally a scourge on our society.

While Governments must taken action against anti-semitism, Government action is not suffice. I’m not suggesting some kind of community vigilanteism; please no. But everyday Aussies are responsibile for their own words and actions and setting an example to others and demonstrating the power of kindness and grace and generosity over hatred and intolerance and selfishness. Of course we must be intolerant towards views that breed hatred toward Jewish people and views that dehumanise the other. That we need laws to demand ‘decent behaviour’ communicates how far our society has strayed. Churches need to take a lead in this, by teaching and practicing what is in accord with the Christian faith. I still cannot fathom how one Melbourne Anglican Minister in 2023 excused Hamas’ slaughter in Israel. Such disgusting commentary should be held to account.

As the Victorian Government proposed their ‘social cohesion’ laws last Christmas, I expressed discomfort at the language of ‘social cohesion’, and I remain uncomfortable. I get it; they are ‘trying’ to address a specific problem without naming the elephant in the room. Why not call it ‘Rules for Safe Protests’ or something like that?

The reason why I’m uncomfortable about the Government’s language of ‘social cohesion’ is because the task of social cohesion doesn’t belong to the government, but to the people. When government sees itself as the answer to every social ill and when the people demand government to fix every crisis, we are obfuscating personal responsibility and creating systems of governance that cannot bear the weight of such responsibility. 

This is one area where the work of Dr Christopher Watkin is worthy of consideration. Monash University’s Dr Watkin articulates a positive and important work on contract theory. He says, 

“Civil society is sometimes the neglected dimension of the social contract, the “missing middle” as it has been called. We have a tendency to jump straight from government and law to the individual.

These civil society relationships across different visions of the good are a glue that holds our social contract together.”

From his book, Biblical Critical Theory, 

‘the vague and sporadic measures taken by contemporary governments to shore up the social contract with well-meaning but half-hearted attempts at “civic edu- cation” have little effect, when all the while billions of advertising dollars and a destructive paradigm of competition in all areas of society expertly catechize individual consumers to be little predisposed to the civic duties a strong social contract requires. No rewriting of the social contract can be complete without giving serious attention to its cultural and liturgical infrastructure.’

We will do well to engage with Dr Watkin’s material closely and carefully. There is much goodness and valuable ideas to be found. Here is one lecture he gave recently on the subject.

No Government is up for the job, and it’s not designed to be. Part of the problem embedded in any Government setting the rules for social cohesion is that this is never a natural space. This is one of the heresies attached to secularism. Secular is certainly preferable to Sharia Law and to Christian Nationalism, but it is no more epistemologically and morally neutral. Secular is the sum of the worldviews present in and controlling the moral impulses of the day.

There are wonderful pockets of social cohesion is found in all kinds of places and communities across our State. There are sporting clubs and men’s sheds, and there are temples and synagogues. It is certainly experienced in local churches.

Churches are frequently more culturally diverse than the communities surrounding them. Where I have the privilege of serving and belonging, we have people from China and Uganda, families from Vietnam and India, Nigeria and Columbia. Young and old mix together, single and married are friends and serve one another. Of course, Churches have their failings and blindspots, (after all, the very point of Christianity is that there is only one perfect saviour and we’re not him!), and yet there is profound togetherness and other person-centredness. 

The Victorian Government accompanied its Social Cohesion directives with expanding anti-vilification laws. Religious groups were understandably concerned such new laws will tighten the noose of faith groups from teaching and practising in accordance with their convictions; history is a strong indicator. It’s amazing how often over the last 10 years Victoria has assumed the bishopric role when Christian praxis hasn’t supported their social agendas. There is a mine of irony in Victoria where Government identifies a growing social disorder and yet clamps down on one of the few societal groups who are truly exhibiting positive social health and life. If we are interested in civil society, maybe we ought to return to the worldview that created the ideas and values from which this vision derives: Christianity. 

Not every religion is equal. Not every idea is equally valid,  and assuming so will only give licence to the kind of behaviour that is all to common now in our city streets. And yet we must delver deeper than legislative reforms. No, I don’t support the idea of a State religion. Religious freedoms and pluralism is a Christian idea for Christianity isn’t something to be gained via Government guidelines and laws. Christianity is grounded grace not law. Without irony however, it is the Christian message that cdreates the space and gives air to the art of persuasion and serving others through disagreement. It is, for example, because Christians believe Jesus is the only way to God that we don’t want Governments legislating religious doctrines. There are however religious and irreligious teachings which contradict basic ideas of social freedom and respect of life and dignity of fellow Australians.

This is one reason why we are losing something precious by running away from the Bible and the God the of the Bible. It’s not something for Government to oversee, this is something the people have largely lost and would do well to come home to. The Scriptures that Jews and Christians alike believe, teach that we must love God with all our being and love our neighbour. Jesus insisted, 

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)

We must love our neighbours. We ought respect and reach out to our Jewish neighbours. We should show kindness to our Muslim neighbours. Law and legislation is a necessary weapon, but the bigger antidote to seeing real and heart transformation requires something more.

Two days ago we celebrated Christmas, the ultimate day of truce-making, although that first holy night was filled with peril. Nonetheless, the hope born that night in Bethlehem really is the only hope we have today. Come, check out a local church and see that hope in action. Let me leave you with the great Messianic promise of Isaiah for he is breathtaking,

‘The people walking in darkness

    have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of deep darkness

    a light has dawned.

You have enlarged the nation

    and increased their joy;

they rejoice before you

    as people rejoice at the harvest,

as warriors rejoice

    when dividing the plunder.

For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,

    you have shattered

the yoke that burdens them,

    the bar across their shoulders,

    the rod of their oppressor.

Every warrior’s boot used in battle

    and every garment rolled in blood

will be destined for burning,

    will be fuel for the fire.

For to us a child is born,

    to us a son is given,

    and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called

    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the greatness of his government and peace

    there will be no end.

He will reign on David’s throne

    and over his kingdom,

establishing and upholding it

    with justice and righteousness

    from that time on and forever.

The zeal of the Lord Almighty

    will accomplish this.’

Bondi Beach Massacre: Naming the evil

/ MurrayCampbell

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. 

shared by Josh Frydenberg on X

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. 

‘We hoped for peace

    but no good has come,

for a time of healing

    but there is only terror. 

You who are my Comforter in sorrow,

    my heart is faint within me.

Listen to the cry of my people

    from a land far away:

“Is the Lord not in Zion?

    Is her King no longer there?” 

“The harvest is past,
    the summer has ended,
    and we are not saved.”

Since my people are crushed, I am crushed;
    I mourn, and horror grips me.

Is there no balm in Gilead?
    Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing
    for the wound of my people?’

(Jeremiah 8:15, 18-22)

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. 

Blood soaks into the sands of Bondi Beach

/ MurrayCampbell / 1 Comment

Last night our church building was packed with people,  gathered to celebrate the birth of Jesus. While our evening was filled with laughter and joy and praise, what we didn’t know at the time was that a massacre was unfolding at Bondi Beach in Sydney.

Thousands of Jewish Sydneysiders gathered at Bondi Beach to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah. As they welcomed the festival of light, darkness descended as two men dressed in black opened fire.

15 people are now dead, with dozens injured, including 2 police. One of the gunmen is also dead, and his accomplice is critically injured. Police and the NSW Government were quick to announce this as an attack on Jewish people and an act of terrorism. 

I am shaken. I am profoundly saddened. What has become of this nation?

I am angry, really angry. Damn those men to hell. Damn those who cultivate and stir hatred toward Jewish people, and those who excuse growing anti-Semitism in Australia.

Can we say that  Australia is safe for Jewish people? If the answer wasn’t already tenuous, after last night’s terror, it is difficult to say yes.

Melbourne this year has borne witness to Neo-Nazis leading marches through our city streets. A prominent Neo-Nazi has addressed crowds in public. Arson at Melbourne’s Addas Israel Synagogue saw the building severely damaged 12 months ago. Jewish Aussies are regularly subjected to anti-semitic graffiti and verbal attacks on the streets. 

To suggest Australia is safe for Jews rings hollow. It is too our shame.

Stories of heroics are slowly emerging. It needs to be said, given the likely identity of the gunmen, that one hero who emerged last night was a Muslim man who ran and tackled one of the gunmen, almost certainly preventing further loss of life. He in turn was shot twice and is now in hospital.

As hundreds of people came together at Mentone Baptist Church last night, we focused on the God who came. I talked about how hurt and harm naturally produce friction and distance. God knows how deeply divided our cities and suburbs have become. Something counterintuitive happened with Jesus; God determined to come closer. When God saw all the evil in this world and all odious motives and words and deeds, instead of walking away as he had every right to do, he came to us.  He came in the most miraculous and vulnerable of ways. The Son of God didn’t come to take away life, but to lay down his own life so that we might gain eternal life. 

The birth of Jesus was accompanied by such bright light, and the scene was also interrupted by a wave of evil and darkness. The Gospel of Matthew records the massacre of the innocents, when Herod chose violence and murdered the young of Bethlehem in his hunt to rid the world of the prophesied one.

Matthew turned to these Scriptures to echo the horror, 

“A voice is heard in Ramah,

    weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children

    and refusing to be comforted,

    because they are no more.”

Today, there is weeping and great mourning in Sydney. This should not be. Why are we not surprised? We are shocked, and yet who is surprised by the blood soaking into the sands of Bondi Beach? Perhaps the location took us by surprise, but our fractured society is losing coherence as we struggle to find something that keeps us together.

Politicians, stop pandering to groups who advocate this bile.

Religious groups,  expose and expel religious preachers who teach this evil.

How long must we watch city streets clogged with protesters shouting obscenities and anti-semitic slurs, all in the name of ‘freedom’.

This isn’t a left or right issue, for the hatred has its horns on both ends. It is a religious issue. It is an ideological issue. It is a heart issue, and evidence suggests we are not equipped to respond. Violence isn’t the solution. Vile social media posts won’t bring about peace and healing. 

The Gospel of John records Jesus attending Hanukkah. While not one of the Festivals instituted in the Bible, this commemoration of the Second Temple’s restoration in the 2nd Century BC, had quickly found a home in the Jewish calendar. It is unsurprising that Jesus, a Jewish man, participated in this Festival of Light (John 10:22).

A light was snuffed out last night at Bondi Beach, and the light has grown dim around Australia. 

Where will we find light to overcome the darkness? Political muscle and social goodwill have some but limited influence. Who can gaze into the soul? Who can outdo evil?

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Pray for the injured. Pray for the hundreds of victims who were present and witnessed last night’s evil. Pray for our emergency services who today continue to work and protect our streets, investigating last night, and attending to the wounded, both the physically and mentally hurt. Pray for our Jewish friends and neighbours. Check in on them. Assure them of our friendship. Pray for them. 

As Hanukkah continues and Christmas approaches, my hope rests in the One about whom it is written, 

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Lord, have mercy. Maranatha