Archbishop questions commitment to tolerance in Thorburn saga

Mason on Friday apologised for the Holocaust analogy but insisted his church was not homophobic. He said he was determined to uphold a traditional, Christian view of marriage and sex while welcoming and being compassionate towards sexually and gender diverse people.

“We don’t want people to be ostracised, we definitely don’t want people to be excluded,” Mason told The Age. “There have been times when churches have not got this right, where they have focused on particular issues or conveyed it in a way that was hurtful.”

He maintains that abortion, although decriminalised in all Australian jurisdictions, is a form of murder.

Mason founded City on a Hill 15 years ago, when his predominantly young congregation gathered at a Docklands pub. It now holds regular meetings at a Hoyts cinema and two other sites in Melbourne and has congregations in Geelong, Brisbane the Gold Coast and Wollongong.

He said neither homosexuality nor abortion were prominent issues in his teachings.

In a recent sermon on transgender issues, he told his followers that he did not believe God accidentally assigned the wrong body to people. He said this was intended not to vilify children with gender dysmorphia but to help them. “We want people to know, as they grapple with that, that they are made by God, loved by God. Our core identity as Christians is that God makes all people in his image and likeness.”

Andrews has not resiled from his criticism of the City on the Hill as “rampantly homophobic”, noting that his support for gay and transgender people was partly informed by his own Christian beliefs. Mason said he was disappointed but not offended by what the premier said and urged him to visit his church.

“We need leadership that is truly inclusive, that values true diversity,” he said. “It would have been great for our premier to actually take time to talk, listen and understand what the Anglican Church and other churches believe, to enter into a conversation and to lead with compassion; not to use words that label people and shut people out.

“I grew up in Melbourne and I love that we are a multicultural, multinational city. We should be celebrating that, welcoming that diversity and recognising that people are going to have different views. We need to make room for that. We need to learn to listen to each other and truly be diverse, not just use diversity as a catchphrase.”

Barham says his decision was not a judgment on Thorburn’s religious beliefs but the conflict he would have had leading two organisations with incompatible values. His decision to part ways with the former banking executive was backed by the AFL. According to sources familiar with Essendon’s contractual arrangements with its briefly employed chief executive, Thorburn agreed to waive a termination payment of nearly $500,000.

Thorburn’s abrupt exit from Essendon follows other high-profile instances – such as Rugby Australia’s decision to sack Israel Folau for condemning homosexuals to hell on social media – where religious expression or association has conflicted with the corporate sensitivities of employers.

George Haros, a lawyer who represented Folau in his unfair dismissal case against Rugby Australia, said the difference with this week’s events is that Thorburn was forced out of his job because of someone else’s comments, rather than his own. As chief executive of the NAB, Thorburn endorsed the bank’s support for Pride campaigns, same-sex marriage and other diversity and inclusion programs. He has suggested he does not agree with all his church’s teachings.

“There seems to be a disconnect between his personal view and what he is being ultimately hung out for,” Haros said. “In Israel’s case it was in relation to a social media post that was attributed directly to him, whereas this situation seems to be more about guilt by strong association. I thought there were some fairly quick judgments in that regard.”

Presbyterian church leaders issued a joint statement on Friday warning freedom of conscience and religion had reached a “watershed moment”.

“There is apparently now a religious test for significant employment posts in Australia,” the statement read.

“We are in a dangerous place when a premier can seek to impose his own personal ideologies on everyone else.”

Frank Brennan, a prominent Catholic lawyer and Jesuit priest, lamented the willingness of people, including civic leaders, to readily stereotype those who hold Christian views.

Thorburn has chaired the City on a Hill board since 2019, the year he resigned from the NAB following damning criticism from the banking royal commission. Freier said this was a lay position which carried responsibilities for governance and administration but none for theological teaching.

Freier is pushing for a national bill of rights to balance religious freedom against other rights. Freier said that, as Australia becomes “post-Christian” society where the church’s teachings no longer hold sway, Christianity is particularly vulnerable to the intrusions of an expanding, “secular ideology”.

“What sort of society do we want to be? Do we want to be one that is really driven by the last focus group?

“The impulse, because we think we know Christianity, is for people who aren’t part of it to reach in and improve it and regulate it and make it more like the society. I don’t think the same people would even slightly think they’d want to do that for other, non-Christian religions.”

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