Christopher Pearson, jolly Joe Hockey, and time for either hellfire or a new crusade, or why not both ...

(Above: just so Joe Hockey can understand, a real preacher shows how to point the way to a decent crusade).

Poor Joe Hockey. He just wants to love and be loved. He kept on rabbiting on about Christ and love in his siren call for all of us to just get along, but he should have known better.

There's always a shortage of love when it comes to the finer points of theology and damnation of the wicked to an eternal life in hell.

If you want to know what it's all about, the sweet caring thing has put his speech up on the full to overflowing intertubes, and you can find it here at his website. For the love of the lord, give Joe a click. Spread the love.

Sure it's a little moth eaten and shaggy dog and long in the tooth - Joe dropped his insights on the 9th of November at the Sydney Institute - but still the commentariat are hoeing in boots and all.

Silly Joe thinks he can just slide into heaven, but the likes of Christopher Pearson know how to trip up that kind of facile, easy thinking.

I haven't been paying much attention to Pearson lately - so many loons, so little time - but an alert reader reminded me he's always worth a read, and so it proves in At odds with the gospel according to Joe.

The opening pars tell Joe what's in store for him. A good bollocking, of the kind Russell Crowe used to love to hand out in Romper Stomper. Now that's showing the love:

It is not often that an Australian politician delivers a speech in defence of God. It is even rarer for me to object when it happens. But Joe Hockey's recent address to the Sydney Institute was so transparently self-serving that I think he'd better just stick to economics.

But he's hopeless at economics, he's said so himself - oh all right, he just said he isn't an economist and he's not going to pretend to be one (here). Oh okay, let's make him leader of the Liberal party. But will he cut the mustard with the fundies?

His opening didn't bode well. "In the context of this speech I use the term God as an analogy for faith in all its forms." In fact he used the word not as an analogy but as crude shorthand, plainly unaware either of the respect with which committed Christians habitually invoke it or its irrelevance to anything apart from monotheistic religions. Buddhism is generally a form of upmarket atheism, for example, while Hinduism has many gods.

Lordy, Joe's sounding like those hell-seeking, no-hoping unbelievers, pantheists, secularists and wretched alternative religionistas who certainly won't pass 'go' to a cheerful eternal life, and no way collect even a modest couple of hundred bucks for their life in hell.

A little later he offered what he plainly expected would pass for a considered opinion on faith in a secular society. "From my perspective, a secular society respects all faiths and accepts that no religious organisation should seek to impose its views on the functions of government." I note in passing that nervous tic "from my perspective", the current equivalent of "as far as I'm concerned", which windbags often use as a preface for saying the first thing that comes into their heads.

Windbag? Is that the same meaning as pompous portentous prat of the Pearson school of scolds? Lordy, not dear old loving Joe:

He means, or thinks he means, that Australian society should respect all faiths. But I doubt he includes any kind of jihad-prone Islamist. Nor do I imagine he believes any tolerance should be accorded to immigrant members of African faiths that insist on female genital mutilation, although fashionably he might perhaps accept violent Aboriginal initiation of either sex on the grounds that it is an indigenous tradition.

Nor perhaps even condescending conservative Catholics consigning all around them to an eternity of hellfire and brimstone, with or without condoms.

Yes Joe, explain exactly why women think they should be in control of their bodies, and might even decide they want to become preacher womyn (though lord knows why). And while you're at it, cast your eye over the history of Christendom, and especially Catholicism and look at their excellent treatment of women. I keed, I keed, don't bother, we don't want another devils of Lourdes or witches of Salem scenario rising up before us. You know how it is with women when the devil gets in them, and some poor exorcist has to come along and pound the devils out of them.

As for the proposition that no faith should attempt to impose its views on the functions of government, this is the kind of cant that enables notionally Christian politicians to win easy popularity, supporting abortion, gay marriage and much else besides, which is contrary to the basic tenets of their faith. Just how "gay-friendly" Hockey is can be judged from the way this speech offers The West Wing's president Jed Bartlett as the ultimate authority on why the Old Testament's proscriptions against sodomy should be ignored.

Oh dear Joe, what ever you do, don't be friendly with gay people. Surely that'll cut you off from half the Catholic church - the clergy that is - but we have to be strict. Rules is rules.

Hockey was very keen to stress that he's no prude. "From the lips of commentators at the most benign end of the spectrum to the hands of fundamentalists at the extreme, religion continues to be used in ways that no loving or forgiving God could possibly have envisaged or decreed." Clearly this refers primarily to the Abrahamic religions -- Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- and it is equally clear that in each system the divinity is omniscient, outside time and envisaging all. His grasp of how far the divine love and forgiveness might extend, in the teachings of each of these faiths, owes practically nothing to its sacred texts and a great deal to the feel-good ethos of the 1980s.

Ah well Joe, at least it isn't the wretched 'love the one you're with' ethos of the 1960's. We're making progress. Once upon a time it would have been the outrageous feel-good ethos of the flappers of the 1920s, but hey ho, on we go.

Again he assured us, while debate rages over whether or not to take a selective or literal approach to the Bible, "the true message of the scriptures -- of compassion, justice, equality, dignity, forgiveness, charity and respect for other people -- inevitably take a back seat." Presumably most of the blame for this gooey version of Christianity lies with his Jesuit teachers. Even so, the speech suggests that Hockey hasn't devoted much time since to reflecting on his faith. Had he done so, he'd know that if the true meaning of the scriptures can be summarised in a nutshell it is "our sin and Christ's redemption". Full-strength Catholicism also holds that hell is a non-negotiable part of God's justice, that universal salvation is a modern error and that none of us is guaranteed a place in heaven. Again, while there is an element of equality in the church's teaching that God loves us all infinitely, it leaves us in no doubt that there is a celestial hierarchy.

Yucky goey, sloppy sentimental, ugh, and finally the nub of it. Full strength faith! Not that wretched light beer you drink Joe, but the real thing. Lay you under the table with its potency, and a good warm up to a decent sherry from Seven Hills.

You see it's non-negotiable Joe. Hell! You politicians always try to negotiate and work things out. Well bugger that for a joke. It's hellfire and damnation for you Joe, brimstone and a blazing inferno, and for all those other mugs who preach love and forgiveness. You're not guaranteed a place in heaven, and the way you've riled and agitated and got Pearson upset, he's like to call down Pell on you and consign you to the very innermost layers of eternal suffering. Because there's a celestial hierarchy, and you don't understand it do you Joe, and seeing as how purgatory and limbo are dodgy concepts, it's hell for you, and for eternity, and that's a very long time. Non-negotiable, no guarantees, no warranties, not even thirty days, and if you get the hair splitting wrong, there's a special warm seat reserved for hair splitters.

Love! As if Christ and Christianity have got anything to do with love. Not when you've got theology to preach and crusades to devise and evil-doers to scorn and berate.

Hockey repeatedly took it on himself to adjudicate on what are the acceptable priorities and attributes of a thoroughly modern deity. Thus, "I do not accept that any of the great religions envisage a God or a divine force that sanctions the worst failings of humanity." Given the very frequent sanctions of violence in the Koran and a history of converting conquered peoples at swordpoint, explicitly including Islam in that category, as he did, is at best disingenuous.

Oh yes Joe, totally disingenuous. Have you no understanding of the very frequent sanctions of violence in the Bible, especially by god himself. Thereafter, once god mysteriously disappeared from everyday activities, these very frequent sanctions of violence have been practised faithfully over the centuries by devoted followers of Christ, with a history of converting conquered peoples at swordpoint, so that explicitly including Christianity in that category, as you did, is way past disingenuous. Almost disingenious (groan).

The god disclosed in the Old Testament to the Israelites and in both testaments to Christians has had a comparable makeover. "The God of my faith is not full of revenge as the Old Testament would suggest with a literal interpretation. The God of my faith does not cause earthquakes as acts of retribution."

You see Joe, you see how you got it wrong. The god of the old testament is a violent vengeful god, and if you don't convert to a vengeful lifestyle, like as not he'll drown you in a flood or turn you into a pillar of salt or cast you out of paradise, or otherwise just fuck you over. Because he can, and because it's fun, and because it's there, and well ... just because ... whenever he hears the word atheist, he reaches for his gun (loves his Glock does god).

Now I don't think many reputable theologians, whatever their denomination, would care to be pinned down to assenting as an article of faith to every disaster in the Old Testament that is depicted as a case of divine retribution. But neither would most feel able to exclude the possibility of more recent divine interventions, welcome or otherwise, in human history. The revealed, supernatural and miraculous character of Christianity's account of itself is indelible.

Now let that be a warning to you Joe. Ever wondered why the Liberals are cast out into the valley of tears, the shadowy vale of the opposition? Divine retribution for sloppy theology Joe!

Two further examples may serve to suggest the extent to which the shadow treasurer has re-invented God in his own cuddly-bear image. "It is not a loving God that wilfully inflicts pain and suffering. No God of any mainstream religion would do that if God's love is real." For the benefit of anyone who finds this guff even half-way plausible, the fallacies underlying the assumption that a loving god would make sure that we were all always perfectly happy were exposed in plain English by C.S. Lewis in his 1940 book, The Problem of Pain.

Yes, Joe, you hopeless sook. A loving god! Get off the wet grass. God is a sadist, so you'd better learn to be a masochist. We recommend either a cane or a leather whip to get yourself to understand the problem of pain. You might think you need to go cat o' nine tails, but we'll let you off lightly at the beginning because you're such a modern weak-kneed Hair the musical chanting sook. Though perhaps you could start with a light cilice and work yourself up to a decent level of mortification and humiliation. How about starting with a hair shirt, and then we'll see about getting those stainless steel spikes jabbing into your inner thigh. A little bleeding will fix what ails you.

But my favourite Hockeyism is this. "Australia must continue, without fear, to embrace diversity of faith provided that those Gods are loving, compassionate and just." Where does that leave death-dealing, chaotic forces such as Hinduism's Shiva the Destroyer? Perhaps Joe will get back to us on that one.

Indeed. And where does it leave death dealing chaotic forces such as the Papacy, and its history littered with religious wars, anti-scientific nonsense, and outrageous maledictions like the Inquisition? Not to mention the United States, which many consider a Christian nation, even allowing for its separation of church and state, and which perhaps achieved a kind of apotheosis of a godlike kind by unleashing nuclear weaponry on the world, such that the supervising scientist of the Manhattan Project, one J. Robert Oppenheimer could mutter "... now I am become Death (Shiva), the destroyer of worlds."

Yes get back to us on that one Joe. We demand answers, and not your slick willy pious talk of love. We leave that to the likes of Bill Clinton.

By golly, the Islamics never managed the nukes with their god. They had to beg borrow and steal from Christian nations, and even now they're really not up to scratch.

What's that you say Joe? Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker reckons that in an unstable Pakistan nuclear weapons might not be kept safe (Defending the Arsenal)?

See, we told you to forget all that love clap trap. Let's get down and boogie, let's experience some real pain, let's cleanse the world like an old testament god feeling his oats. Let's see which religion can be the most destructive and win the final, ultimate crusade. Hey, those Islamics don't stand a chance ... and joy of joys, you might get to meet your maker a little earlier than you might have expected or hoped for ...

Meantime Joe, don't worry too much. Compared to the likes of Pearson you're much more lovable and huggable, and no doubt we'll see you in hell ...