Gerard Henderson, Tony Abbott, Chairman Rudd and a heavenly host of sneering secularists ...

(Above: Tony Abbott in earlier days at St Patrick's Seminary Manly, a building that's now gone secular and has hosted fiendish secularist events!)

Every morning, I get up, look into the mirror and put on a sneer.

I think I'm getting the hang of it, the scornful facial expression characterised by a slight raising of one corner of the upper lip. Derisive, contemptuous sneer in place, I'm ready to face the world, but not of course before settling down to an inner west latte, which sometimes puts a nice streak across the sneer.

Later in the day, I'll sip on a wine - chardonnay is obligatory, but a subtle deviance to an NZ sav blanc expresses a suitable sneering hostility to Australia and all it stands for (as does cheering NZ on in the World Cup).

Some days I might prefer a martini, shaken but not stirred ... oops, that puts me in the wrong genre. Can't do the spy stereotype when we're busy doing the inner west secularist routine ...

Yes, brothers and sisters, what else could have caused this sneering outburst of sniggering sneering cynicism than reading the pious, wide eyed, innocent pearly gates true believing scribbling of arch ponce and prattling Polonius Gerard Henderson? As in Here God is anything but dead:

Among the inner-city types who frequent taxpayer subsidised literary festivals, what Michael Burleigh has called sneering secularism is all the rage. Witness the recent successful tours to Australia of such proselytising atheists as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.

The teachings of Dawkins and Hitchens seem to have enthused secular flocks in Ultimo or Melbourne's Brunswick.

But not so much in the outer suburbs and regional centres where God is anything but dead.

Uh huh. Here we go again. But hang on, who scribbled this nonsense?

Religion in Australia has invariably been a private affair, as befits an officially secular society. Some prime ministers have been believers but none projected their religious views on to society in general.

The list includes the Catholics Jim Scullin and Joseph Lyons and such Protestants as Stanley Melbourne Bruce and Robert Menzies.

Yes, it's the same goose. You see, Australia is officially secular, which, you would think, makes the entire country, its officialdom and bumbling bureaucrats, part of a sneeringly secular society, where none dare project their religious views on society in general.

That's why the Lord's Prayer isn't read out at the start of Parliament each day! That's how proudly and officially secular this country is! But do they have to start with a Rolf Harris wobble board song? Surely patriotism can only go so far ...

But in his hatred of inner city types - is that what happens when watching trendies sip lattes from your inner city office? - and his love of Penrith - we hear he's certain to shift there in the next decade or three - Henderson never worries about logic.

He is, in his own reflexive way, as ignorant and as reflexively reactive as a redneck confronted by a flock of hippies.

Because you see, having peddled the official line about a secular society, he then goes on to trumpet - with a peculiar elephantine trumpeting - the joys and virtues of politicians from both sides of the house pandering to Christians:

The Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader spoke and answered questions about the values that should define Australia after the election. The function was webcast to thousands of Christians at hundreds of churches.

Rudd and Abbott are both busy. They would not give up this amount of time if they did not believe the audience was important or if they felt uncomfortable talking as Christians to other Christians.

Naturally when I put on my secularist sneer for the day, I feel deeply uncomfortable talking to Christians. Whenever I go in to my local op shop and talk with the minister personning the shop, he sometimes looks at me oddly, perhaps wondering about my sneer. I explain that I'm deeply uncomfortable talking to him, seeing as how Australia is officially secular and he represents everything that's wrong with the country, seeing as how he undermines its secular status on a daily basis. Is that why he won't knock ten per cent off the knickknacks on offer?

Meantime, as you'd expect from our prattling Polonius, Henderson is off playing at history, in this case the religious history of chairman Rudd. Eek, he doesn't seem to find it noteworthy that the Marist Brother's College in which the good chairman was a boarder is the inner west suburb of Ashgrove. At last the mystery of Rudd's inner west tendencies is explained. He's just posing at religion ...

One thing's certain. When Henderson writes about religion, his sniffy snooting prancing about becomes distinctly uncomfortable. If you refract everything through politics and ideology, theology is a minefield. Scribbling about the chairman's love of German Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Henderson offers up this:

... Bonhoeffer supported the laudable move to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Moreover, the Lutheran pastor was a fervent opponent of abortion.

Yes, and Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian. As a couple of non sequiturs of the more meaningless kind, ain't they grand.

Henderson plays a similar hand with Abbott:

Abbott was brought up a Catholic. As the Opposition Leader makes it clear in his book Battlelines, he regards himself as an imperfect Catholic.

This is not an unusual position for a member of a faith which regards sin as a manifestation of The Fall of mankind and believes in confession (or reconciliation) leading to eventual redemption. In this sense, all Catholics - including the Pope himself - are imperfect. It's just some are more imperfect than others.

Oh amen to that brother. And hallelujah to Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden and the apple and snakes and tricky women and the whole damn thing ...

But you see this is also part of Henderson's bizarre attempt to extricate the politicians from the Christian vote trolling they indulged in last night, in a trend begun by Howard and Costello, and now continuing on to the tune of the Christian lobby:

In Battlelines, Abbott described the Catholic political activist B.A. Santamaria as his mentor. Yet Santamaria had little time for the Liberal Party and declined to support Abbott's decision to contest preselection in 1994. What's more, Abbott has little of his mentor's zeal. Like the Prime Minister, Abbott is a pragmatic politician.

Oh yes, the makeover continues. It seems Mr. Abbott no longer sneaks in the back door to a briefing from the Pellites and then can't even recall doing the meeting. No zealot him, just a pragmatic politician ... with a series of conservative Catholic stances ... ready to hang out with the Jim Wallace crowd, even if a lot of fundie proddies would think him a heretic worshipping at the whore of Babylon, and destined for an eternity of hell ...

Oh ain't religion grand in its own infinitely forgiving way ...

But hey, forget all that stuff about pragmatic politicians. Henderson's just remembered why it's okay to be religious conviction politician, even if it's Rudd who does the church door stoppers and Abbott who's trying to shake off the Catholic past he used to drape around his neck, and preen and parade about as he promenaded through policy issues:

There is little doubt Rudd's ability to present himself as an economic and social conservative in the lead-up to the 2007 election helped Labor to its stunning victory. This time around, the Coalition has a leader who is just as prepared to proclaim his faith in public as Rudd, even if, unlike the prime minister, he does not do media doorstops outside his local church on Sundays. The sneering secularists like to dismiss believers as idiots or worse. Yet Rudd and Abbott are among the most formally qualified politicians to hold leadership positions in Australia.

You see, all is forgiven, because they're shoving it to the sneering secularists, and both are primed to hold leadership positions in Australia. And if you think nobody likes them, be prepared for a surprise:

It is fashionable for members of the press gallery to refer to the unpopularity of the leaders of Labor and the Coalition. But both have an approval rating of about 40 per cent, which suggests most Australians are satisfied with the leaders of their party of choice.

Yes indeed, and it's only in cloud cuckoo land that we'd expect popularity figures to suggest actual popularity. Because unpopularity is, if you think about it, a kind of popularity, because after all it's not so much avoiding an F, or getting over the 50% mark, so much as avoiding a 30% popularity figure which might suggest 70% unpopularity, as opposed to say 60% unpopularity.

Hmm, must present this as argument to teacher as to why 40% is in fact a decent pass, and I'm now entitled to a High Distinction. At last, I'll get to pass maths! Thanks Hendo.

And now back to Hendo's deep cogitations. You know, I bet the prissy poncy prattler hates being called Hendo:

Political parties take believers seriously for a number of reasons - including the fact that most politicians have a better idea of what makes Australians tick than those members of the intelligentsia who deride all belief systems apart from their own secular ideologies.

Yes, there's nothing like a pretentious conservative git working out of Phillip street in the heart of Sydney to explain to the great unwashed what makes Australians tick, a prattling member of the intelligentsia of a conservative kind, running the Sydney Institute and hanging out with the toffs.

Oh dear, is it time to put on my sneering secularist face. Wait, wait, it's hard with a face convulsed with chuckles. Stop it, stop it, stop cracking the jokes Hendo, it's getting too hard to sneer ...

But at least you get one thing right. There can only ever be imperfect commentariat commentators in the world, and you surely know how to show off your imperfections, your irrational hatred and your sneering derision for all those who have belief systems apart from your own truly strange ideology ...

(Below: underneath the arches).

Why that image reminds me of a favourite song of my grandmother, who gasp, lived in a regional centre! Oh granny, pause while I put on my sneering face so I can sneer at you:

Underneath the Arches
I dream my dreams away.
Underneath the arches,
On cobblestones I lay.
Ev'ry night you'll find me,
Tired out and worn.
Happy when the daylight comes creeping,
Heralding the dawn.

Sleeping when it's raining,
And sleeping when it's fine,
I hear the trains rattling by above.
Pavement is my pillow,
No matter where I stray.
Underneath the Arches
I dream my dreams away.