CANBERRA – Can a Christian govern without compromise? The question has been asked many times and in many different circumstances. Perhaps the election of a Liberal majority in the Australian Parliament offers the best answer yet as Scott Morrison, an unabashed Pentecostal and the leader of the Liberal Party has become the country’s new prime minister.

This may also be the most difficult time in history to answer the question unless we define what it is that might be subject to being compromised. It is starkly clear that the culture of the world system has become more openly less friendly to the truth of the Bible over the past 50 years.

There is now enormous pressure to buy into the intolerant campaign for tolerance, the acceptance of aberrant immorality, and the belief that mankind can save the planet through the universal effort to control the climate and eradicate all kinds of injustices.

Morrison’s ascendance into the PM position has stirred a substantial amount of public interest and concern.

John Warhurst, emeritus professor of political science at Australian National University told Sight Magazine, “In a perverse sort of sense, I think the fact that religious belief in the general community is usually described as declining makes it perhaps all the more interesting that you have a Prime Minister with considerable Christian religious beliefs.”

Yet another professor emeritus of sociology, Gary Bouma of Monash University posed that “You can’t understand Scott Morrison without understanding his faith. It is a critical part of his identity and he has made it so, but it always has been there.”

However, when there is a confluence of legal and biblical ordinances, the undertow of the political waters can test one’s wisdom and willingness to not compromise. The issue is almost always a matter of whether a Christian political leader will disregard Biblical truth to please the majority or disregard the majority to obey Biblical truth.

Scott Morrison has been prime minister only since August 24, 2018. He is already facing battles between principles and political positions. How much his faith will guide his leadership remains in doubt as two items on his agenda have begun to stir resistance from opposing perspectives.

• Christians and Jews are rallying to his recent statements indicating that he is considering the potential of moving the Australian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
• On the other hand, a fight is brewing over the possibility that Morrison will pressure parliament to apply a law binding upon state-run schools to private, religious schools as well. If passed into law change would mean that Christian schools would no longer be able to reject or expel students or dismiss teachers because of their sexual orientations and preferences.

Prime Minister Morrison is in a difficult position. What he will or will not do with either of these issues remains unclear, but they can be matters of prayerful concern for Christians around the world as we ask the Lord to give the PM wisdom and discernment.

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