Re: Kevin Rudd
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Re: Kevin Rudd         

Group: alt.philosophy · Group Profile
Author: turtoni
Date: Aug 19, 2008 09:34

"Rudd and his family attend the Anglican church of St John the Baptist
in Bulimba in his electorate. Although raised a Roman Catholic, Rudd
began attending Anglican services in the 1980s with his wife. Like
John Howard, Rudd has addressed congregations of the Hillsong Church.

Rudd is the mainstay of the parliamentary prayer group in Parliament
House, Canberra. He is vocal about his Christianity and has given a
number of prominent interviews to the Australian religious press on
the topic. Rudd has defended church representatives engaging with
policy debates, particularly with respect to WorkChoices legislation,
climate change, global poverty, therapeutic cloning and asylum
seekers. In an essay in The Monthly, Rudd writes:

A Christian perspective on contemporary policy debates may not
prevail. It must nonetheless be argued. And once heard, it must be
weighed, together with other arguments from different philosophical
traditions, in a fully contestable secular polity. A Christian
perspective, informed by a social gospel or Christian socialist
tradition, should not be rejected contemptuously by secular
politicians as if these views are an unwelcome intrusion into the
political sphere. If the churches are barred from participating in the
great debates about the values that ultimately underpin our society,
our economy and our polity, then we have reached a very strange place
indeed.

He cites Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a personal inspiration in this regard.

In late January 2007, Tony Abbott - a former seminarian and federal
minister for health under the coalition government - criticised Rudd's
use of Christianity in Australian politics,[ contrasting Rudd's public
appeal to Christian values with his voting record on issues such as
the introduction of the abortion-inducing drug RU486.

Rudd is opposed to same-sex marriage:

I have a pretty basic view on this, as reflected in the position
adopted by our party, and that is, that marriage is between a man and
a woman"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Rudd
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