This week in Two Ways News, Tony Payne and Phillip Jensen discuss the upcoming constitutional referendum. The heart of their discussion is an attempt to answer two questions: “What place does morality have in deciding questions like this?” and “How should Christians engage with the debate as citizens?”
Tony Payne: Is there a Christian response to this particular social, political question that we’re grappling with? How can Christians think through morality and the way we make decisions as Christian citizens?
Phillip Jensen: Well, firstly I hope we’re not going to tell people how to vote. In fact, I hope we’ll be successful in hiding how we’re voting. But I think everybody is concerned about the disadvantage that our First Nations peoples are feeling and suffering, and we are and have been spending government monies to try to alleviate the disadvantages of life that the indigenous people experience. And one of the motivations behind this constitutional change is the hope that through “The Voice”, we’ll be able to close the gap between white Australians and Indigenous Australians in terms of their life expectancy, their health, their violence, the difficulties there, economic depravations, and so forth.
You can either listen to their discussion via podcast, or read the transcript of the conversation, by continuing to their website.