Moral cowards lead us all on another step down dark road in Andrew Thorburn, Essendon saga

Traditional religion is not the biggest danger to a tolerant society. The dangers come from secular priests, who preach inclusivity and diversity, only to shame and sack people with different views.

The moral arbiters at Essendon decided that Andrew Thorburn’s private religious views were enough to have him removed from a job he held for 30 hours, writes Janet Albrechtsen. Picture : David Geraghty

Year 9 students, please answer the following question: in alphabetical order, name the countries where members of a certain religion are not allowed to hold high-profile jobs. No takers? I will kick off the list: Afghanistan comes first, with Australia coming right behind it.

Welcome to Australia where, in 2022, a man was forced out of a job on his first day because he is a member of a Christian faith that does not approve of abortion or homosexuality.

The removal of Andrew Thorburn as CEO of Essendon football club ought to be taught in schools across a country that pretends to adhere to democratic ideals but fails so dismally it now shares, apparently, core beliefs with countries such as Afghanistan.

Sadly, this is not the low point of our cultural demise. If this were rock bottom, there would be an outcry from all sorts of people standing up for Thorburn, not because they agree with him but because they understand that his removal is another step down a dark road for a country that presumes to be a liberal democracy.

There are two lines of argument doing the rounds to justify Thorburn’s removal.

The first goes to his faith. The second concerns his previous role as CEO of National Australia Bank. Both arguments point to a form of sanctimonious secularism that is more controlling, and more unforgiving, than any religion. We have less to fear from Christianity than we do from the new high priests of wokeness where no room is made for genuine inclusivity, tolerance or redemption.

Thorburn is a member of the City on a Hill church. He sits on the board of this Christian organisation. Thorburn keeps his faith to himself. He didn’t tweet about homosexuality. He didn’t protest outside an abortion clinic. He didn’t preach Christian views to his management team or Essendon players. Yet the moral arbiters at Essendon decided that his private religious views were enough to have him removed from a job he held for 30 hours. The board axed him after the Herald Sun published a sermon given by a pastor from City on a Hill (not, we should note, by Thorburn) in 2013 and posted on City on a Hill’s website. This sermon said, among other things, that we may one day look back on abortions as mass killings on par with concentration camps.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews condemned these views as appalling bigotry. Does this man have no shame? Is there a more chilling hypocrite than Andrews, a practising Catholic? No one suggests that his private religious views, whatever they may be, render him incapable of being a premier. There are other sound reasons to condemn him as Premier, but not his faith.

If the Catholic Church put out a statement tomorrow that said homosexuality is a sin and marriage is for the rearing of children between a man and woman, would we condemn Andrews for being a Catholic? Wait, those ideas are part of Catholic faith. The Catholic Church also condemns abortion and for all we know Andrews may privately share that Catholic view also. But whatever Andrews’ private views on abortion, they haven’t prevented him from allowing it in Victoria.

Thorburn’s removal by the moral cowards on the Essendon board represents the persecution of a man for guilt by association. The board conceded this when in their statement, released on Tuesday, they admitted that Thorburn didn’t make the comments in the 2013 sermon, and they predate his role as chairman of the City on a Hill church. In his statement on the same day, Thorburn made clear that he had never heard those views expressed during his two years on the board of the City on a Hill: “I am not a pastor, my job in a governance role is to make sure it’s run well. I don’t always agree with what’s said.”

Many people of faith follow some but not all tenets of their chosen religion. Are we to interrogate people as to which tenets form part of their faith? Who is so special that they decide which tenets are acceptable? If a person adheres to all or most tenets of their religion, and does not impose those values on anyone else except themselves, what business is it of ours?

Are other people now to be removed from their jobs for holding personal and private views that don’t fit with the public values of an organisation? There is a case for some organisations such as churches and religious schools to enforce strict moral codes on those who actively transgress them – but football clubs?

If this is the new order, where do we stop? There must be a clean sweep of practising Catholics from all footy clubs, from all sporting codes too, from parliaments, and universities and bureaucracies.

Surely practising Muslims in high-profile jobs must be next on the list for religious persecution.

Yesterday it was Thorburn. Tomorrow it will be someone closer to you. Or you.

Thorburn’s removal for his private faith shows the high price of the Morrison government’s spineless backdown over a religious freedom bill. By caving in, the Liberals joined the cancellers of religion. Whatever else should have been in it, the holding of private beliefs should have been easy to protect. If Andrews can be a practising Catholic, his private religious views not impacting on his day job, then Thorburn can be a City on a Hill adherent and the CEO of a football club.

Our cultural collapse is personified further by Victorian Human Rights Commissioner Ro Allen siding with Essendon, applauding them for “standing to their values”. What about the core human right to freely practise your religion, to think private thoughts in a liberal democracy? Allen is an embarrassment to human rights.

Hannah Arendt must be turning in her grave. The modern genius of political philosophy understood that democracies depend on a distinction between public and private lives. Arendt spent her life explaining how totalitarian regimes flood the private lives of people with propaganda and threats as a deadly means of control. The more we allow others to strangle our private sphere, the more power we give them to control us. The dark history of authoritarianism has been lost among our most educated elites.

Do these high priests of diversity – those who preach it but do not practise it – see the irony of their bludgeoning authoritarianism? They are imposing a set of far more sanctimonious and controlling strictures on us than any formal religion does on its followers. Their secular commandments keep people off boards, stripping people from jobs, telling sinners that there is only one set of acceptable views. These ubiquitous hypocrites are more chilling than a Bible-basher.

There is no redemption for sinners in this brave new world controlled by the new authoritarians. This raises the other reason put forward for Thorburn’s removal: his previous role at NAB. To be clear, this did not concern Essendon – the club celebrated his commercial career when announcing his appointment. Neither did his role at NAB concern Premier Andrews. But over at the Australian Financial Review Joe Aston seemed to suggest there is no room for redemption – for some.

Aston ought to know better. But he couldn’t resist the thrill of joining the witch burning, adding different fuel to the pyre. Public shaming, chasing scalps, stomping on them, has become the new addictive drugs for so many in the media. Aston took aim at Essendon for employing the former NAB boss after royal commissioner Ken Hayne criticised Thorburn and NAB’s rotten culture. It is fair to point out that Hayne roasted Thorburn for his time at NAB. But no civil or criminal charges have been laid against Thorburn and all relevant regulators accepted that his sacking was sufficient punishment.

Is Thorburn to be condemned to hell forever? What about other NAB board members at the time: are they to be condemned to permanent unemployability too? Or do we, as a genuinely tolerant society, believe in redemption? The NAB chairman at the time of the same culture, Ken Henry, made a fool of himself at the commission – blaming capitalism, instead of accepting responsibility – but he went on to be reappointed as a director of the ASX and was recently appointed by the NSW government to an advisory panel charged with developing the state’s first industry policy white paper.

What a dark period we find ourselves in. Traditional religion is not the biggest danger to a tolerant society. The dangers come from secular priests, who preach inclusivity and diversity, only to hound out, shame and sack people with different views; and from other hypocrites who could learn a thing or two from religions about the importance of redemption in an enlightened society.