> "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