How Scott Morrison's religious beliefs compare with other prime ministers

Few prime ministers have been as upfront about their faith as Scott Morrison, in a time when fewer and fewer Australians are identifying as religious. How does Morrison stack up to other PMs?

This story is part six in a series. For the full series go here.

Scott Morrison is a man of faith. There haven’t been too many Australian prime ministers distinguished by their faith. The others include Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott; leaders who, ironically, surfaced at a time when Australians are less committed to religious practice than they have even been. “No religion”, as measured by the census, has risen to record highs.

Denomination, as distinct from faith, has been a distinguishing feature of Australian society and politics. This denominational history has attracted greater attention than what religious affiliation and/or belief actually meant to these men.

First, most prime ministers have adhered to one of the major denominations: Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian or Methodist. The minor Christian denominations have hardly featured at all, although Bob Hawke and Julia Gillard — who identified as agnostic or atheist — came from Congregational and Baptist backgrounds respectively.

Second, because of the history of sectarianism in Australia the distinction between Catholics and Protestants has mattered greatly. It widened the gap between the Labor and non-Labor parties because of the link between Catholicism and Labor which meant most Catholic PMs at least began on the Labor side until the 21^st century.

The Catholic Joe Lyons, however, left Labor to become a non-Labor prime minister in the 1930s. Later Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull became Catholic non-Labor prime ministers.

Rudd and Abbott make useful comparisons to Morrison because they hint at possibilities of what a “religious” PM might mean.

Rudd was a progressive Anglican with a Catholic upbringing. He was notable as prime minister for his public attendance at Anglican services, at St John’s in the Canberra suburb of Reid. Sometimes he spoke to the press after church. Even before becoming prime minister he used his religious belief to defend Christian socialism against conservative Christianity. He also used his religious identity as part of his political positioning.

Labor and the religious community

After the 2004 election loss, Labor needed to rebuild its credentials with the religious community. The loss of its votes was regarded as one reason for Labor losing. Before the 2007 election at which Labor was successful, Rudd set out to appeal to religious voters and engaged with conservative church lobby groups like the Australian Christian Lobby. His overt religious identification helped him lift his appeal with middle-of-the-road and even conservative voters.

Rudd became an adversary on religious matters with his successor, Abbott. The latter, as opposition leader, identified religion as a battleground.

Abbott was a conservative Catholic and not afraid to identify himself as such. But the identification was built on a different foundation. Unlike Rudd he was rarely pictured at a religious service. His identification came through his youthful attendance at a Catholic seminary, his media image, and through his public relationship with leading Catholic figures such as fellow conservative Cardinal George Pell.

Most importantly, Abbott’s faith was related to his political positions on issues of sexual morality. As health minister under John Howard his opposition to abortion famously became an issue in the RU-486 case in which a cross-party alliance of women stripped him of ministerial responsibility for the anti-abortion drug.

As prime minister, his determined opposition to same-sex marriage was directly linked in the public mind to his Catholicism.

Compared with Rudd and Abbott, Morrison has claims to being the most religious of all. But that needs to broken down into its component parts.

Pentecostalism makes Morrison stand out

The easy part is to concentrate on the obvious elements of his Pentecostalism, which of itself makes him stand out. These include the exaggerated style of worship and the distinctive language of miracles, which makes even many other orthodox Christians — but not all — uncomfortable.

He also maintains clear connections with religious communities, much like Abbott and his religious mentors. His individualism and approach to the “prosperity gospel” is equivalent to, but very different from, Rudd’s collectivism and Christian socialism.

Less clear to me is the connection, if any, between Morrison’s faith and his leadership style — a big topic worth further investigation, taking into account contrasts and comparisons with other PMs and world leaders.

With all PMs it is the connection between faith and policies which is most difficult to establish. A connection between faith and attitudes towards the funding of private religious schools doesn’t seem to exist, for instance. Needs-based funding of schools was introduced by the agnostic Gough Whitlam, building on the initiatives of the Presbyterian Sir Robert Menzies, in the 1960s and ’70s. The obvious candidates, Catholic prime ministers, appear to have avoided the issue for political reasons.

Howard’s enthusiasm for school chaplains may be an example of faith driving policy, but the agnostic Gillard kept the policy in place.

Many prime ministers, generally on the left, but some on the right, credit religious belief for instilling in them social justice credentials, even after they have moved on to agnosticism or atheism, like Hawke.

One would expect faith to play some part in Morrison’s leadership and policy formulation, but if it was found to be his primary motivation it would not only be unusual but would cement his place as the most religious of Australian prime ministers. The jury is out.

Next — PM and the Pastor: how Morrison and Brian Houston became Australia’s religious power couple