Monday, February 02, 2026
Menzies faith
Sir Robert Gordon Menzies (1894-1978) was the founder of the Liberal Party. He remains Australia's longest-serving Prime Minister and one of our nation's most articulate statesmen.
Menzies was a Presbyterian, and his Christian convictions shaped him and his social and political views profoundly. In and out of office, Menzies promoted a down-to-earth, practical faith that served the community, improved democracy, and valued unity over sectarian squabbles.
Menzies on the Bible
Bob Menzies had a great respect for Scripture, believing in its divine inspiration, its uniqueness among the great books of history, and its irreplaceable value in shaping well-rounded citizens. He was raised to read the Bible regularly, and from university onwards he made this a daily habit.
At the opening of the National Memorial Bible House in Canberra, in 1960, Menzies made the following remarks about Scripture:
"The Bible is the most remarkable repository of religious history. Frankly, I don't think that any man could regard himself as educated unless he had become familiar with the great historic stories of the Bible."
"The Bible is the repository of our faith and of our inspiration. Never out of date, always up to date, always difficult of application and therefore stimulating to thoughtful people. It is the great source of faith, and of course that is why we ought to read it… The story is there, the great history is there, the great gospel is there, the whole spirit of Christianity is there."
"If I were, as I am not, an atheist or an agnostic or some other such unhappy person, I would still take the Bible with me to a desert island for two reasons. One, that I would have a noble piece of literature to accompany me and two, because given ample opportunity to study it I might cease to be an atheist or an agnostic."
Menzies on Self-Sacrifice
Sir Robert Menzies was ahead of his time in discerning the rise of an entitlement culture. As the modern world dawned in Australia, so much talk of rights was overshadowing the fundamental duties that citizens have towards one another that make for healthy, flourishing societies. It was in this context that Menzies regularly pointed to the great Christian ethic of self-sacrifice:
"Christianity… begins its teaching by imposing on every citizen the obligation of unselfishness, of thinking of the interests of his neighbour before his own, and regarding himself as his brother's keeper."
"This capacity for sacrifice, this capacity for preferring other people to oneself, this capacity for saying, I will contribute all if it is for the good of the country, exhibited so frequently in war is a God-like quality. The capacity for sacrifice, the whole idea of sacrifice is at the very root of the Christian faith."
"All things that our Faith stands for — quiet living and human kindness, the freedom of the soul, justice to our neighbours, the essential brotherhood of man, are today challenged and nothing less than our best can save them from eclipse."
Menzies on Spiritual Man
One of the great challenges facing Australian society during the Menzies years was a growing attraction towards materialist worldviews that saw humans as mere machines or animals.
Perceiving where this kind of thinking could lead, Menzies warned against it — but he never encouraged people to neglect the material world. Rather, he pointed to the spiritual realities that give meaning and purpose to our physical world:
"If ever man has set up a golden calf to worship, it is in the last forty-years or so, when he has been worshipping at the shrine of his own diabolical cleverness, and because he has become so great a worshipper of the material, the world has been rocked into such ruinous disaster."
"Democracy is more than a machine; it is a spirit. It is based upon the Christian conception that there is in every human soul a spark of the divine; that, with all their inequalities of mind and body, the soul of men stand equal in the sight of God."
"Nobody can suppose that we are educating our children, except for disaster, by turning them out of purely secular establishments at the age of fourteen, fifteen or sixteen years, merely educated to a point at which they think there is nothing left for them to learn, aggressively conscious of what they suppose to be their rights, and oblivious of that penetrating feeling of moral obligation to others, which alone can make a community of men successful."
"Human nature is at its greatest when it combines dependence upon God with independence of man."
Menzies on the Spectre of Tyranny
Materialism was not just threatening Australian society from within. It had also inspired diabolical ideas on the European continent that ended up dragging our young democracy into a second global conflict.
To successfully confront these evils, Menzies understood that a well-equipped military was not enough: we would need moral courage and character that can only flow from a belief that humans are spiritual creatures of irreplaceable value:
"While Fascists and Nazis concentrate their efforts upon the power of the State, regarding the citizen as the mere minister to that power, democrats must concern themselves with what they see to be the true end and final justification of the State; the chief end of the State becomes man — man the individual, man the immortal spirit."
"All war, and this one in particular, is a horrible and destructive thing, and demonstrates nothing so much as the truth that spiritual civilisation has lagged far behind material civilisation; that clever mechanics may yet have savage hearts; that a great reformation in human character must be the vital element in the keeping of the world's peace; and that great reformations proceed by slow changes step by step and not by decree."
"It is only that democracy which sees the superb spiritual value of the individual man which can really win a crusade against tyranny and force, and lead the way into a better world."
Menzies on Faith and Politics
Today people promote the "separation of church and state" and a secular public square. Those ideas go back to the founding of Australia, but Menzies wouldn't recognise them in their current form. For him, as indeed for Australia's founders, secularism was about making sure no particular denomination was favoured by the government. But that faith and religion should influence the political landscape of Australia was an absolute given:
"I don't think we ought to be seeking to express Christianity in party political terms, but I am perfectly certain that it's the duty of all of us to examine our own politics in Christian terms."
"We should all in a country like this, constantly test our politics, constantly try our political faith by seeing that we express it in Christian terms, but that doesn't mean that we can't disagree about politics. That doesn't mean that to be a good Christian you have to be a good Liberal or a good Country Party man, or a good Labor man. I'm saying exactly the opposite. To be a good Liberal, to be a good Labor man, to be a good Country Party man, you will be all the better if you are a Christian."
"In my father's house there are many mansions. Don't forget it. There is room in every political party for Christian men and women of all schools of Christian thought."
Menzies on Religious Freedom
For Menzies, what marked a civilisation was the freedom and tolerance it extended to its citizens. Freedom to worship and believe according to one's conscience was of paramount importance to Menzies, who laboured to heal Australia's Catholic-Protestant divide and who had a special affection for the Jewish community. In a time of rapid modernisation and violent conflict, Menzies elevated the vital importance of religious freedom:
"It is grimly significant that the century which has seen the greatest scientific advancements of recorded history has been, more than perhaps any other, disfigured, not only by wars of a stupendous range and intensity and destruction, but by widespread attacks upon the religion of love by organised hatreds and cruelties of the most barbarous kind."
"The religious freedom for which the Scottish Covenanters fought was freedom for all, Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile, and to deny it was to go back to the dark ages of man. Religious persecution was the denial of freedom. Freedom of worship is the victorious enemy of persecution."
"That just as freedom is not easily beaten out of the heart of man, so is faith not easily beaten out of him. You cannot take thousands, millions, hundreds of millions of people who have a faith of their own, and destroy it, merely by order or command."
Menzies on Jesus Christ
According to historian and political theorist Stephen Chavura, Menzies' "Christianity was sincere, but like many of his generation leading up to the rapid secularisation of the 1950s and 1960s, probably more ethical than devotional."
Even so, he had a faith that was unshakeable, life-defining, and centred on one man:
"The one man, for he was human as well as divine, whose memory holds no blemish, whose influence has grown for nearly two thousand years, whose birthday is the occasion for rejoicing for hundreds of millions of men and women, was and is Jesus Christ."
Menzies was a Presbyterian, and his Christian convictions shaped him and his social and political views profoundly. In and out of office, Menzies promoted a down-to-earth, practical faith that served the community, improved democracy, and valued unity over sectarian squabbles.
Menzies on the Bible
Bob Menzies had a great respect for Scripture, believing in its divine inspiration, its uniqueness among the great books of history, and its irreplaceable value in shaping well-rounded citizens. He was raised to read the Bible regularly, and from university onwards he made this a daily habit.
At the opening of the National Memorial Bible House in Canberra, in 1960, Menzies made the following remarks about Scripture:
"The Bible is the most remarkable repository of religious history. Frankly, I don't think that any man could regard himself as educated unless he had become familiar with the great historic stories of the Bible."
"The Bible is the repository of our faith and of our inspiration. Never out of date, always up to date, always difficult of application and therefore stimulating to thoughtful people. It is the great source of faith, and of course that is why we ought to read it… The story is there, the great history is there, the great gospel is there, the whole spirit of Christianity is there."
"If I were, as I am not, an atheist or an agnostic or some other such unhappy person, I would still take the Bible with me to a desert island for two reasons. One, that I would have a noble piece of literature to accompany me and two, because given ample opportunity to study it I might cease to be an atheist or an agnostic."
Menzies on Self-Sacrifice
Sir Robert Menzies was ahead of his time in discerning the rise of an entitlement culture. As the modern world dawned in Australia, so much talk of rights was overshadowing the fundamental duties that citizens have towards one another that make for healthy, flourishing societies. It was in this context that Menzies regularly pointed to the great Christian ethic of self-sacrifice:
"Christianity… begins its teaching by imposing on every citizen the obligation of unselfishness, of thinking of the interests of his neighbour before his own, and regarding himself as his brother's keeper."
"This capacity for sacrifice, this capacity for preferring other people to oneself, this capacity for saying, I will contribute all if it is for the good of the country, exhibited so frequently in war is a God-like quality. The capacity for sacrifice, the whole idea of sacrifice is at the very root of the Christian faith."
"All things that our Faith stands for — quiet living and human kindness, the freedom of the soul, justice to our neighbours, the essential brotherhood of man, are today challenged and nothing less than our best can save them from eclipse."
Menzies on Spiritual Man
One of the great challenges facing Australian society during the Menzies years was a growing attraction towards materialist worldviews that saw humans as mere machines or animals.
Perceiving where this kind of thinking could lead, Menzies warned against it — but he never encouraged people to neglect the material world. Rather, he pointed to the spiritual realities that give meaning and purpose to our physical world:
"If ever man has set up a golden calf to worship, it is in the last forty-years or so, when he has been worshipping at the shrine of his own diabolical cleverness, and because he has become so great a worshipper of the material, the world has been rocked into such ruinous disaster."
"Democracy is more than a machine; it is a spirit. It is based upon the Christian conception that there is in every human soul a spark of the divine; that, with all their inequalities of mind and body, the soul of men stand equal in the sight of God."
"Nobody can suppose that we are educating our children, except for disaster, by turning them out of purely secular establishments at the age of fourteen, fifteen or sixteen years, merely educated to a point at which they think there is nothing left for them to learn, aggressively conscious of what they suppose to be their rights, and oblivious of that penetrating feeling of moral obligation to others, which alone can make a community of men successful."
"Human nature is at its greatest when it combines dependence upon God with independence of man."
Menzies on the Spectre of Tyranny
Materialism was not just threatening Australian society from within. It had also inspired diabolical ideas on the European continent that ended up dragging our young democracy into a second global conflict.
To successfully confront these evils, Menzies understood that a well-equipped military was not enough: we would need moral courage and character that can only flow from a belief that humans are spiritual creatures of irreplaceable value:
"While Fascists and Nazis concentrate their efforts upon the power of the State, regarding the citizen as the mere minister to that power, democrats must concern themselves with what they see to be the true end and final justification of the State; the chief end of the State becomes man — man the individual, man the immortal spirit."
"All war, and this one in particular, is a horrible and destructive thing, and demonstrates nothing so much as the truth that spiritual civilisation has lagged far behind material civilisation; that clever mechanics may yet have savage hearts; that a great reformation in human character must be the vital element in the keeping of the world's peace; and that great reformations proceed by slow changes step by step and not by decree."
"It is only that democracy which sees the superb spiritual value of the individual man which can really win a crusade against tyranny and force, and lead the way into a better world."
Menzies on Faith and Politics
Today people promote the "separation of church and state" and a secular public square. Those ideas go back to the founding of Australia, but Menzies wouldn't recognise them in their current form. For him, as indeed for Australia's founders, secularism was about making sure no particular denomination was favoured by the government. But that faith and religion should influence the political landscape of Australia was an absolute given:
"I don't think we ought to be seeking to express Christianity in party political terms, but I am perfectly certain that it's the duty of all of us to examine our own politics in Christian terms."
"We should all in a country like this, constantly test our politics, constantly try our political faith by seeing that we express it in Christian terms, but that doesn't mean that we can't disagree about politics. That doesn't mean that to be a good Christian you have to be a good Liberal or a good Country Party man, or a good Labor man. I'm saying exactly the opposite. To be a good Liberal, to be a good Labor man, to be a good Country Party man, you will be all the better if you are a Christian."
"In my father's house there are many mansions. Don't forget it. There is room in every political party for Christian men and women of all schools of Christian thought."
Menzies on Religious Freedom
For Menzies, what marked a civilisation was the freedom and tolerance it extended to its citizens. Freedom to worship and believe according to one's conscience was of paramount importance to Menzies, who laboured to heal Australia's Catholic-Protestant divide and who had a special affection for the Jewish community. In a time of rapid modernisation and violent conflict, Menzies elevated the vital importance of religious freedom:
"It is grimly significant that the century which has seen the greatest scientific advancements of recorded history has been, more than perhaps any other, disfigured, not only by wars of a stupendous range and intensity and destruction, but by widespread attacks upon the religion of love by organised hatreds and cruelties of the most barbarous kind."
"The religious freedom for which the Scottish Covenanters fought was freedom for all, Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile, and to deny it was to go back to the dark ages of man. Religious persecution was the denial of freedom. Freedom of worship is the victorious enemy of persecution."
"That just as freedom is not easily beaten out of the heart of man, so is faith not easily beaten out of him. You cannot take thousands, millions, hundreds of millions of people who have a faith of their own, and destroy it, merely by order or command."
Menzies on Jesus Christ
According to historian and political theorist Stephen Chavura, Menzies' "Christianity was sincere, but like many of his generation leading up to the rapid secularisation of the 1950s and 1960s, probably more ethical than devotional."
Even so, he had a faith that was unshakeable, life-defining, and centred on one man:
"The one man, for he was human as well as divine, whose memory holds no blemish, whose influence has grown for nearly two thousand years, whose birthday is the occasion for rejoicing for hundreds of millions of men and women, was and is Jesus Christ."
# posted by Groseys messages @ 10:08 AM
