Mainstream political commentators have been talking like witnesses to some kind of miracle. A miracle that many of them - from Marr to Megalogenis - appear to have been praying for.
But as Guy Rundle - Crikey's global correspondent-at-large - captures in a brilliant metaphor. Watching a building dance only seems miraculous, if you don't recognize that there is actually an earthquake underneath.
The coup against Kevin Rudd was seen by all commentators to be a remarkable occurrence, as for example would a dancing building. It is only when you realise that there's an earthquake moving underneath it, that it starts to make sense.
And what is that earthquake? The GFC and the extraordinary impact it is having on the stability of the western body politic.
As Rundle points out, whether you are a North American, European or East Asian there is deep dissatisfication with the political leadership across the globe, but no consensus as to what they are doing wrong.
Australians are familiar with the growing stench around Obama. But this narrative is more widespread than the Anglosphere. As with Labor locally, in Japan and Sweden reformist opposition parties that swept to power just a few short years ago on the promise of change are already facing collapse. And that is without drawing breath on the financial calamities in the Iberian peninsula and Balkans and the flakey coalitions coming unstitched in the low countries (and inevitably the UK?).
What our largely myopic Australian political commentators have overlooked is that fundamentally Rudd is victim of the GFC. The political decisions that killed him - the overly speedy stimulus package , the delay in the ETS, the need to increase the tax base via the resource sector - are all linked to it.
Given that the leadership of the Sydney Diocese has been equally rocked by the Global Financial Crisis, it might be instructive to make three observations about these events that are relevant to our life as a church.
1. Leaders are rarely the main problem.
Internally the narrative of church stagnation/decline is nearly always framed as a failure of church leadership. But as we see with Rudd's fall, there are much larger social forces at play. And I don't mean some simplistic secularisation theory that equates modernity with the triumph of atheism. (Those who subscribe to such theories should note the report in the Sydney Morning Herald that suggests many Humanist societies are facing a crisis caused by the same greying as we see in many church pews.) Unions and political parties have also been grappling with the decline in membership. One of the darker consequences of the drop in party membership has been the rise of machine politics behind last week's 'palace coup'.
2. Punters hungry for change
We are entering a cultural period where people are hungry for change. This is translating directly into church life. NCLS Research released data last month showing that there is extraordinarily widespread desire for change amongst church-goers. Its June 2010 newsletter reports that more than nearly 3 in 4 attenders agree or strongly agree that "we need to develop new ways of doing church to reach non-church goers". There was widespread agreement that traditional established models of church life must change to better connect with the wider Australian community (66% strongly agreed or agree). A longitudinal study show that there is far greater engagement with new initiatives than ever before. There has been a significant decline in the perceived degree of mistrust of initiatives in the 15 years between 1991 and 2006 and between 2001 and 2006, every major denomination recorded an increase in the proportion who agreed that their congregation was always ready to try something new. But more importantly, the NCLS Research report shows that the majority of church attenders not only understand the need to innovate, but also claim to be motivated to support initiatives.
3. Over-promising change is dangerous
While church leaders must acknowledge the need for change, they shouldn't over-promise what can be realistically delivered. As in politics, if this desire for change isn't harnessed effectively, it will quickly turn to dissatisfaction. Just as it proved for Kevin Rudd, this can be as dangerous for church leaders. A targeted survey of Anglican and Protestant attenders within the 2006 National Church Life Survey identified that 37 percent of churchgoers agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, "While I remain a committed person of faith, I feel disgruntled with the established Church". Most were neutral or unsure. Only 15 percent disagreed.
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