Thank God for a higher authority

I AM not much of a churchgoer these days. Too tired on a Sunday morning and, besides, there's such good stuff on telly at that time.

Illustration: Sturt Krygsman

I AM not much of a churchgoer these days. Too tired on a Sunday morning and, besides, there's such good stuff on telly at that time that I just have to stay at home and watch because ... because ... it contributes to my work.

That's right. I'd go to church on a Sunday morning but I have to stay at home and watch television because it's important to my job. And God wouldn't want me to not provide for my family, would he?

Do you think this logic will fly on Judgment Day?

This is not to say that I do not admire churchgoing or the self-discipline of churchgoers.

After all, I used to be an altar boy. I loved it. I once saw a priest with a cold and a drippy nose bend over to kiss the altar and when he straightened up the drip had disappeared. God moves in mysterious ways.

I was taught by the Sisters of Mercy. I loved the nuns. I thought they were middle class. (It's only now, later in life, that I realise this is an odd observation for a 12-year-old boy to have made.)

My experience with the sisters was back in the days of the full nun habit. Sister Andrew used to regale us with stories of her youth before entering the convent. She claimed to have been an expert in dancing the charleston. "Show us, Sister. Show us."

So she did. She hitched up her habit from her ankles and proceeded to dance the charleston. And, do you know, she was actually very good. The floorboards under her feet were bouncing as she jigged.

I'd sit in the church pews and study everything and everyone. Invariably right in front of me there would be a middle-aged man with a comb-over.

Does he really think that no one knows he's bald? I can see that he has combed his hair from just above his left ear right across the top and down the other side. You can see his scalp beneath the comb tracks. What does his hair look like when it's wet?

As you can see, my mind was everywhere other than on what was going on. There's a kind of singsong voice that priests and ministers adopt when speaking to a congregation; it's very soothing and sleep inducing. Why can't they jazz things up a bit?

I quite like watching evangelists on the Christian TV channel. I am especially impressed with the work of Joel Osteen from Lakewood Church in Houston in the US. He can speak for an hour without notes or teleprompter, citing passages from the Bible seemingly off the cuff, and keep 5000 worshippers enthralled from start to finish. Maybe churchgoers are an easy audience, but I still think this is an impressive talent. Then he fronts up with another hour-long performance on another topic the following week: smile, homily, Bible citation, reference to his lovely wife Victoria, smile.

He's the complete 21st-century churchgoing package. He has done for churchgoing what Kerry Packer did for cricket. He has re-envisioned and repackaged the product.

The most devout people in Australia are the elderly. Perhaps this is because there is a tendency to be reflective later in life. It also may be because churchgoing values guided them through war and Depression: the next life must surely be better than this one. Whereas when everything is hunky-dory here and now, why on earth would you believe in a hereafter?

I wonder whether churchgoing surged during the global financial crisis. Even though I am not a believer, I think there is benefit from a wider societal belief in a higher authority.

A society that believes in a god of some sort is deferential: there is a higher authority to which we are all accountable. Without belief in any form of higher authority we are accountable only and unto ourselves. And in the case of weak-willed mankind this is perhaps not always such a good thing.

KPMG partner Bernard Salt's new book is The Big Tilt.