The New Sectarianism

September 24, 2024 by Michael J. Sutton

In the past, nations were torn apart by religious sectarianism. In those days, if a Protestant saw a Catholic walking down the street, or vice-versa, many would cross it to avoid meeting them, or God forbid engage in polite conversation. Those who married across this divide were treated to the most appalling, disgraceful, and unchristian forms of behaviour. In Australia, this period lasted well up to the early 1980s, if not later. This type of sectarianism pops up from time to time in various places, but overall, it is a thing of the past for most Australians, thank God. 

There is a new sectarianism, however, and it has nothing to do with religion, but it is all about loyalty to the state. It is here because our democracies are dying. This is a natural process. Like flowers, they come and go, and while some leave seeds for new growth, others simply die. Spain, Portugal, and Chile were nations that experienced the end of democracy and the rise of fascism, but they also experienced the revival of democracy through largely peaceful means. There is hope for other places going through the same transition. 

The loyalty tests began with 9/11. The loyalty test in those days in Australia was to support the War on Terror. If you did, your career flourished, but if you did not, your career hit roadblocks, detours, or you were simply cast out. This loyalty test elevated the current generation to their places of power in industry, government, academia, and religion. This is the generation that gave us Covid-19 and the pandemic. The obedient generation. The loyal generation. 

Many of them are older now, and you see it in their faces, haggard and tired, skin tightly wrapped around their skulls with their dyed hair and grey roots, their creased suits, and their angry faces. They have this vacant look in their eyes. Like Faust, they all made their deals in the dark. The War on Terror made their careers and invented the new sectarian manual for dying democracies, The Loyalty Test. We have seen ‘Stand against Trump,’ ‘Stand for Ukraine,’ and ‘Stand with Israel.’ Soon it will be ‘Stand with Taiwan.’ 

But since 9/11, there has been one loyalty test above all, one that sunk roots deeper than the foundations of our democracy, and that was ‘Loyalty to the State’ in the pandemic. Your views on politics, war, and even Trump are forgiven, but if you did not support vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, and lockdowns, you are an enemy of the state, someone we will avoid, someone we will ignore, someone we will pretend doesn’t exist. It is the unforgivable sin. 

I have published nine titles in the Freedom Matters Today series since the nightmare of Covid Hysteria, from November 2022 onwards, exploring various threads of freedom. My latest is ‘Does God Stand with Israel, A Christian Response to Gaza.’ Most of my readers are people with no connection to organized religion. My book on Gaza is controversial, but surprisingly, in Christian circles, not for the reason you might think. It is because I committed the ‘unforgivable sin,’ and did not, and will never support, the unholy trinity of vaccine passports, mandates, and lockdowns. 

For many Christians even today, all that matters is whether you were loyal to the state during the pandemic. It is not the person of Jesus, the resurrection, eternal life, or anything Christian, but obedience to the government and submission to the authorities, in everything. 

For the dead in the church, and there are many, Loyalty to State brought its own rewards. For people who toed the line, who violated their oaths, who forfeited their faith, who betrayed their people, they got their money. Many in the church were outed as loyalists for the government. Their loyalty to the state was deeper than their faith in God. It is as simple as that. They were bought. They were bribed. The state knows how to control them. It is through the hip pocket. The state knows how to win over churches in any crisis. It is only a matter of cold, hard, cash. 

Now, my critique of organized religion has offended a lot of Christians, but it is mild compared to the old sectarianism that Christianity embraced from the beginning of the penal settlement until 9/11 when it was transformed into this ‘new sectarianism.’ 

In the early days of the colony of New South Wales, Catholicism was illegal. Catholic convicts (they were basically slaves) were forced to go to the Church of England services in chains. Australia was a dumping ground for thousands of Irish rebels who challenged the Crown. From 1788 to 1820, there were no official Catholic priests, though there were a few secret operatives. 

The Irish Catholic Priest Fr. Jeremiah O’Flynn came to Sydney in November 1817, and he secretly performed Masses, baptisms, and marriages, until he was deported by Governor Macquarie about six months later. The governor believed that the presence of one Catholic priest might cause insurrection amongst the hundreds of free Catholic soldiers serving in the prison colony (who had been deprived of pastoral care for years). His secret, subversive, and illegal ministry gained the respect of even some Protestant leaders. The damage he did in six months to the religious sentiments of the colony and to the future of Australia was decisive.

Even Rev. Marsden (a hero to modern evangelical protestants), whom we would today call corrupt and clearly psychotic (he was fond of whipping people in public), felt it was time for an ecumenical spirit. I admire O’Flynn and others like him, for they believed in freedom, and had the spirit of Christ. They challenged corrupt political authority and tyranny, and they changed history. 

Today, what do we have? Weak-willed, corrupt, lazy, incompetent church leaders who invented Covid Theology because they didn’t want to be fined if they kept their churches open. There were no secret gatherings, no seditious baptisms, no covert marriages. Nothing. 

I am not sure about America, but here in Australia, many church leaders are gutless, spineless cowards, who cower to the state, especially when the government is dangling money for their properties, their schools, and their investments. For them, it is about money, reputation, and power. In the pandemic, the church was the beneficiary of one of the largest direct transfers of money in the history of Australian Christianity. 

Maybe I am a little harsh in my words, but like Jesus, and Fr. O’Flynn, I believe in freedom, and calling out rotten attitudes, corrupt behaviour, and spiritual cowardice when I see it. Maybe it is the Irish in me, on my father’s side. They were good Catholics, hard-working people. Maybe it is the French in me, the love of liberty. My ancestor fought against the English. God bless him. It is good old-fashioned honesty. This honesty used to be at the heart of the Australian spirit, but thanks to the new sectarianism, it has been blacklisted, cast out of polite society, and ignored, just like the Catholics in the past. It is, however, an honourable place to be. To challenge authority, distrust government, and stand for freedom is what it means to be an Australian, and it is what it means to be human. 

But we reap what we sow. The obedient generation will not prevail, for there is another movement out there, the movement for freedom. There is a revolution coming. It is not a protest, it is not about elections or government, but it is in the heart, and in the mind. It is the revival of the human spirit and a reawakening of the soul. You see it in their eyes. You see people who are not dead, but alive. 

We should also remember, that whether by war or a peaceful transition, fascism dies and with it the stale, dead, obedient, loyalist generation. They will have no graveyard, no tombstones, no memorials and no one will remember their names.

We remember those who stand for freedom, because without it, nothing matters. 

The Rev. Dr. Michael J. Sutton has been a political economist, a professor, a priest, a pastor, and now a publisher. He is the CEO of Freedom Matters Today, looking at freedom from a Christian perspective. This article is edited from his November 2022 book: Freedom from Fascism, A Christian Response to Mass Formation Psychosis, available through Amazon.