Lachlan Hunter MLA recently made a spirited defence of reciting the Lord’s Prayer in the WA Parliament. I agree with him that reciting the Lord’s Prayer before parliamentary sittings is a sign that all present are answerable to a higher authority.

I would like to add a few points, the most important of which is that the Lord’s Prayer is not just a statement of faith in God; it is a statement of faith in humanity. It affirms our human value and dignity. Beyond its theological significance, it is a solemn symbol of the foundational Judeo-Christian values that have made possible our liberal democracy.

Indeed, our liberal democracy, as it is said, came from Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem. The foundation from Jerusalem shows that the idea of human liberty owes a debt to a radical theological revelation.

In the ancient Near East, pagan worldviews conceived human beings as ‘savages’ who were created merely to be slaves to capricious gods and other humans. People were seen as born without freedom, inherent value, or personal moral responsibility. The faith of Israel shattered this fatalistic worldview by revealing humans in relationship to a God of truth, goodness, and love. It declared in the opening of Genesis that every human being is created in the very ‘image and likeness of God’.

This radical revelation introduced our world to the inalienable dignity of every individual. This dignity allows us to call God ‘Our Father’ as the common Father of us all. While pagan cultures judged the value of people hierarchically, according to their wealth, rank, gender, or race, the Jewish tradition taught that every person is equally valuable in relation to their Creator. Furthermore, through the prophets of Israel, the Bible rejected the pagans’ fatalistic acceptance of evil and suffering. Instead, it embraced an ethic of compassion and the revolutionary hope that humanity, cooperating with a loving God, is called to actively relieve suffering, stand against injustice, and to make this a better world. This enables people to pray, ‘Thy Kingdom come.’

The view of the human person symbolised by the Lord’s Prayer also stands in stark contrast to totalitarian ideology that seeks to subject the individual to the power of the state.

We can consider the fundamental divide between totalitarian authority and individual liberty. When Deng Xiaoping was accused of violating human rights during the Tiananmen Square massacre, he replied that no rights were violated, because rights are granted solely by the state, and the state had not granted those rights to the victims.

We can compare that to the founding document of modern political freedom, the United States Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed:

‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’

The fundamental principle, that human rights are prior to the state, beyond the reach of the state, and rooted in a transcendent Creator, is the foundation on which our liberal democracy stands. It was in that spirit that John Adams counselled, ‘Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.’

Our liberal democracy was formed through centuries of development across the Christian faith, Greek philosophy, and Roman and English legal traditions. But none of it could have taken effect without the foundational belief that our worth, equality, and rights are neither bestowed by government nor subject to parliamentary vote, but are granted by a rational and loving Creator whom we can call ‘Our Father’.

By reciting the Lord’s Prayer, Parliament doesn’t impose a doctrine on people. Instead, it humbles its members before a standard higher than the state. It is a reminder that every citizen they represent has an inviolable dignity, and that their power as legislators is strictly limited by a higher moral order.

To discard the prayer in the name of modernisation would be like chopping down a tree while demanding its fruit. If we wish to preserve our freedom, our compassion, and our liberal democratic order, we must remain respectful of the transcendent truth that created them.

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