Surely it’s political dynamite to profess that Christian-Jewish origin stories bestow a shared righteousness on nations — unity from which equally monotheistic Muslims and diverse other believers and non-believers are excluded.
This “Judeo-Christian tradition”, however, is a long-established propaganda vehicle with multiple evolutions, and it’s become an increasingly divisive dog whistle to the far right. In the mouths of its advocates, “Judeo-Christian” is typically followed by an emotive word: tradition; bond; heritage; civilisation; foundations; principles. Even “ethic” and “faith”.
Now ultra-conservatives spearheaded by the Christian right and pro-Trumpian Jewish figures led by Israeli wartime leader Benjamin Netanyahu evoke an epic struggle to save Western civilisation from barbaric forces. This is a historic confrontation playing out in real time on Palestinian lands, being justified by these oft-repeated claims of a “Judeo-Christian tradition” stretching across millennia. It tells us over and over that the case for Australia’s, America’s and selected other nations’ support for Israel in Gaza and across the Middle East rests on “shared values”.
These are not expressed as human or democratic values, mind you, but ones based in religion. Yet a set of values which transparently do not include any consistency in regard to the “thou shalt not kill” commandment, nor adherence to the sanctity of human life more broadly. But there’s plenty of biblical-style eye-for-an-eye retribution.
Truth … and lies
Superficially it can be powerful stuff with a ring of historical truth in the foundation stories of traditionally “Western” nations such as America and Australia. But it’s multiculturally loaded and dangerously societally divisive. It turns out that the whole notion of such a Judeo-Christian tradition is shrouded in ambiguity, is the subject of intense academic and religious scrutiny and debate, and has many of the characteristics of a classic propaganda line popularised in America in the first half of the 20th century.
In the 1930s, it took off as a well-meaning rhetorical vehicle to unite Catholics and Protestants as the mainstreams of Christianity in America, with Jews against rising anti-semitism in America. Cue the Klu Klux Klan. In the 1940s it was aligned against Nazi facism. In the 1950s and ’60s, it was repurposed against communism as the Cold War gripped the world; by the 1980s it was deployed by American conservatives against liberal-progressive social reforms such as abortion rights, gay freedoms and marriage equality.
Now it’s morphed again, with the enemy “other” being variously identified as “woke politics”, the rising superpower China as the ultimate non-Western nation and, above all, Islamism. To many in this orbit this appears to be synonymous with the Islamic religion and all Muslims.
In the religion-infused politics of America, “Christian Zionists” have paradoxically become a thing. Pro-Israel US ambassador Mike Huckabee is a self-professed prime example. Bible-toting Baptist and Trump Republican loyalist Senator Lindsey Graham warns apocalyptically that: “If America pulls the plug on Israel, God will pull the plug on us.”
… Truth … and lies
It’s a deceptively complex trope embraced wholeheartedly by influential Australian conservatives in and around the intensely pro-Israel Liberal-National opposition. This notion of Judeo-Christian traditionalism has proven especially popular with the Christian right and their conservative political icons, including former prime ministers Tony Abbott, a Catholic, Scott Morrison, a Pentecostal, and in earlier times John Howard, an Anglican. But there’s also Angus Taylor, opposition defence spokesman, and conservatively influential former deputy PM John Anderson, from the Nationals camp, one of the architects of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), an overtly pro Judeo-Christian global network created in 2023 to defend western civilisation as we know it.
Jewish federal Liberal MP and frontbencher Julian Leeser has equated Judeo-Christian values with Australian ones, positing that Islamic “jihad” is as far from these values as one can get. Late last year opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Senator Michaelia Cash used it to defend the celebration of Christmas.
It’s one of those lines that politicians, including conservative Australian ones, are prone to slip into a rally-to-their-cause statement without being pulled up by the media. It’s proof that if you keep repeating strategic fabrications for long enough, they become part of accepted order of things.
Labor politicians, however, are far less likely to reach for it. Although former PM Kevin Rudd, now Australia’s ambassador in Washington, an observing Anglican, wemt there in 2010 in an address to the Australian Christian Lobby, speaking to “the key values which underpin the Judeo-Christian ethic which has been alive in this country for the past two centuries”.
Tell that to Indigenous Australians.
What lies beneath
Netanyahu, meanwhile, who faces a court-ordered warrant for alleged war crimes, is also on board. This despite longtime and widespread apprehension in Jewish circles about their faith being subsumed into an overwhelmingly Christian political construct (concern fuelled by the concept of “supersessionism”, also known as “replacement theology”, whereby Christians have replaced Jews as God’s “chosen people”).
In a recent state-managed meeting with White House faith adviser Pastor Paula White, Netanyahu proclaimed a “Judeo-Christian bond” built on “faith, history and tradition”, under assault by a “campaign of lies”. It’s a well-travelled trope for Netanyahu, who told a French television audience last year:
“Our victory is your victory. It’s the victory of Judeo-Christian civilisation over barbarism. It’s the victory of France!”
It’s a rhetorical first port of call for right-wing poupulists such as hater-in-chief Trump and his long-time “America First” and “Make America Great Again” muse Steve Bannon, who regards Putin’s Russia as part of a “Judeo-Christian West”, and has spent years fighting to establish an academy for the Judeo-Christian West in Italy, a “gladiator school” for wannabe far-right politicians.
Given the international push to endorse a state of Palestine and Israel’s unfolding intention to forcefully take full control of Gaza City and its 1 million inhabitants, there’s a mounting global diplomatic challenge to Trump to rein in Netanyahu’s widely condemned military plans.
But amid the ongoing horrors of Israel’s Gaza invasion, in the aftermath of the atrocious Hamas-led mass killings and hostage-taking of October 7, 2023, in a war zone where truth has very much become the first casualty, beware anyone who claims their values are superior and come from on high.
I’ve always been amused by the right wing “judeo-christian civilsation” claims, given that the “christian” element has been pretty damn committed to the persecution (and sometimes extermination) of the “judeo” element for the majority of the european history the are talking about
Expediency?
Since the 1920s with the support from the British Mandate which recklessly included the Balfour Declaration in the approval the got from the League of Nations. The Balfour Declaration defines the majority population of Palestine4 as non-Jews! That tells an important story.
A book with food for thought: Arthur Cohen, The myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition. 1970. He sees it as a myth; late nineteenth century. Here is a significant quote which makes sense to me. “Jews and Christians have conspired together to promote a tradition of common experience and common beliefs, whereas in fact they have joined together to reinforce themselves in the face of a common disaster. The myth is a projection of the will to endure of both Jews and Christians”.
I wonder if you add up deaths caused the Judeo-Christian right supporters and the ‘barbarians’, who would actually come out worse.
religion sucks
Absolutely!!!
I just wish that Christians would remember that Jesus came to serve and to save all people. He died for that as foretold long before – nothing to do with political values and not as a conqueror against the expectations of the religious and the power structures of his time on earth. He said He was the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Jesus had nothing to do with the creation of Christianity. He was a committed and devout Jew.
Christianity was devised by the old iteration of the Paula Whites of the ancient world… ie: charlatans and grifters!
As a long time catholic Christian with a simple mantra “love one another” not like one another. In the famous parable of love it was a Palestinian (samaritan) who gave aid. The daily readings for the 21st week in ordinary time year1 are ” alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are the sons of those who murdered the prophets! Very well then, finish of the work that your fathers began.” Etc. Matthew 23 : 13-32.
I can read and write and am professional upper middle class but always on my guard of being a hypocritical Pharisee (read far right)
I have lived in Canberra for over 40 years and have long got over being angry at politicians and journalist citing the blame on “Canberra” for too many maladies of the classes. Similarly I am a Bible believing Christian at a time when this previous social norm has become a shameful thing to admit (largely due to the faiths own doings). Here too I get annoyed at all the faiths individual issues being lumped on all. I think your article was straying into the over generous pointy finger of blame on all faiths and all people within them. Religion can used by the poly’s and journos just as well as any other subject to direct blame.
This has nothing to do with religion.
It’s about power and an overwhelming need to avoid retribution for the actions that have been taken. Victors are said to write the history, but there are too many witnesses this time.
It has an awful lot to do with religion as religion is oft used as a tool, a shield , a justification and an excuse to wield otherwise unjustified powers. It is a fundamental weapon of the Western warmonger.
Israel has been stealing land and dignity from the Palestinians since the early 70s – it’s about time the rest of the world took notice. I just wonder why it took so long.
Vanessa Redgrave was crucified by the Hollywood elite when she supported the Palestinian Liberation Army st the Academy Awards in the late 70s.
Since the late 40s.
The strength of the Christian tradition, and indeed its main purpose, lies in following the teaching and examples of Jesus. Loving a neighbour, looking after the widows and orphans, being a peacemaker, healing the sick, being grateful, and welcoming strangers.
This modern version of Judeo/Christianity, with its emphasis on last days theology and despising those who are not them, is quite terrifying. This is not the tradition that I would want to have anything to do with.
Ah, until the very last sentences I thought that at last, we may escape the reference to the day when Israel, the US inc company who invented “Pegasus” and which rules the West Bank with facial recognition cameras and an iron fist refused to believe its spotters and the warnings of an impending attack which they had the plans for for a year… suddenly went blind and deaf.
Is it compulsory that Oct 7 is referenced like 9/11??
The war on Palestine has been running for a hundred years.
Zionism is fascism, that is what my Jewish grandfather said.
The war on Palestine has been running for thousands of years. Homer referred to Palestine and the Palestinians in the Iliad (approx. 700 BC) when Jews where slaves in Egypt. both Arabic and Yitish are Semitic languages. The Greeks ruled the area after taking it by force, then Egypt, the Caninities and then it was concurred by the Syrians. The Jews did not come to later when the fled slavery in Egypt.
If what we’re seeing in Gaza at the moment is an example of what the “Judeo-Christian tradition” delivers, then the sooner we distance ourselves from it, the better …
It seems easy to forget that during the Hitler years it was European Christians who were trying to wipe out those of the Jewish faith.
Where were the so-called ‘shared values’ then!
And if Bannon reckons that Russia is part of the ‘Judeo-Christian West’ – where does Ukraine fit and why is Putin trying to wipe it out? Is it really because Zelensky, as a person raised in the Jewish faith, somehow isn’t and can never be, part of the same ‘Judeo-Christian’ valued tribe?
I doubt that there is really much connection between ‘values’ once the shooting starts.
The blurred lines of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires distort our understanding of this conflict. The conflict started with the Crusades, which is why we have both a Catholic Church and an Orthodox Church, all because of a little parcel of land where they wanted to set up Heaven. All religions have achieved on the planet is hell on earth.
When you hear that “God’s promise” justifies stealing neighbour’s land, call in the psychiatrists, urgently.
Michaela Cash,Joyce, Caravan,Littleproud etc. all the fools of the previous LNP misgovernment are still there…and they have learned nothing.They may as well oppose themselves.
Respect for human life and the command not to kill is basic to all major religions. However distortion happens when religions are institutionalised and used for immoral and self interested purposes. Moses brought down the 10 Commandments to give to the people who were worshipping the golden calf ( riches) and God was angry with them. The first command was to love God wholeheartedly and one’s neighbour as oneself. Within the commands were the commands not to kill or covet neighbours goods Property. Christ broke the laws down to one, to love. Neighbour was the one on the wayside set upon by brigands in the story of the Good Samaritan. These are the values that underpin Australians call for a fair go and for assisting those who are beset by natural disasters, illnesses and accidents.
The eye for an eye belongs to a very primitive barbaric culture and not of God. The behaviour of Israel towards the Palestinian people is utterly abhorrent and against the values of the majority of Australians. The huge numbers of those marching and those who would if they could speaks of their distress and disgust.
Great article. Just a note on the Commandment “thou shall not kill. This is often misunderstood. It was only referring to other Jews. To demonstrate this refer 1 Samuel 15:3-23 NIV – “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'” So Saul summoned the men and mustered them at Telaim—two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand from Judah. Saul went to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the ravine. Then he said to…(in short a genocide)
Netanyahu and his Zionists refer to the Palestinian’s now as the Amalek and there for are just following God’s instructions in their genocide of the Palestinians. The Christian fundamentalist the literalist the biblical inerrantist back this. They are doing no more than they are commanded by God to do. This is othering to a whole new level
Are does one say to the 8 born again anti Semitics above. last time they were reborn was when Hitler was around and it was the rich Jews. Before that it was for a long time when Christianity was born that it was because they killed God. Today, in the Culture Wars, it’s because of the elite’s wokism and Critical Theory theology that urges then to love Hamas, bow to Hamas’s hate and destruction of the ordinary Palestinian peoples and curse and profane Western thought and culture.
Thank you Murray for telling it as it is. What more proof does the world need that religion and unreasonable religious dogma contribute to the conflicts the world is witnessing? The warning in your last sentence “beware anyone who claims their values are superior and come from on high”, is not part of the mindset of war criminals who justify genocide with their religious entitlements. Netanyahu believes he is entitled, as simple as that, and deserves to face a lot more than world condemnation.
All of the Biblical references in the previous comments tell me that there are people among us who do not understand how humans can operate decently in a society without deferring to ideas from a text written by unknown persons thousands of years ago. Do humans really need this stuff to operate a decent and moral society today? It blows my mind.
Exactly Anita.
My moral compass works fine without the religious dogma I was fed as a young child.
I believe that people can have a good moral compass without a religious dogma. Dogma is simply a set of laws and is not about spirit and a positive way of life. Usually this is something passed on through word and example and first of all by parents. I do find it insulting though that one’s belief system which is framed in a positive and fundamental way of love and respect for others through a spiritual upbringing using these fundamental tenets of faith is rubbished by comments such as those above. Certainly institutionalised religions have caused harm but there also is a lot of harm caused in our world by people who have no moral conscience and probably never will, and have had no guidance in how to live a good human life. Are these people such as the dictators and fundamentalists of all kinds usually under one ‘ism’ or another without a moral conscience because what was passed down was an empty dog eat dog belief system. Basic belief systems come from somewhere.
Yes Kristin, basic belief systems have to come from somewhere. Of course belief systems should originate with parents. You appear to have made assumptions about belief systems that come from religion soaked families. Many of these belief systems (in particular from religion) carry innate biases and discrimination against some parts of populations no matter where they live. For example, take the harmful homophobic attitude of some religions. There are so many reasons for humans to intelligently decide the rules by which they live, without the complications of the fake superiority that religion assumes. Just look at the Middle East to see this. With religion can come a dangerous sense of power leading to genocide. And just have a look at the alarming false Christianity that has risen up in Trump territory. Scary indeed.
Mine too!
It’s proven that the average tribe of primates can do it too…
There are three religious faiths that trace themselves back to Abraham – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Australia is a secular state which recognizes the United Nations Declaration of Human rights as do followers of the three Abrahamic faiths. Individually and collectively we fail to protect those rights of all people, especially those without political and economic power..
The Zionist equation of Judaism with the state of Israel is not recognized by many Jewish people.
See : ‘Open Letter by Jeffrey Sachs Aug 13, 2025 to Israel’s Foreign Minister H.E Gideon Sa’ar after Sa’ar’s address to United Nations Security Council on August 5, 2025.
As a happy escapee from fundamentalist Christianity, I always found it hard to believe in a ‘God’ who played favourites amongst her children.
So true and remember these Hillsong and other evangelical/ Pentecostal churches, such as this Exclusive Brethren mob, and preachers, like the late and totally unlamented Billy Graham, have been and continue to be millionaires 100s of times over and, yet not much of their ill-gotten wealth makes into programmes to relieve poverty and exploitation. In short, this whole Hillsong and other evangelical/ Pentecostal mobs are nothing but fucking highly profitable untaxed businesses !!!! The Colosseum is vacant at the moment and some hungry big cats, wolves, and bears are waiting for their ‘Christmas dinner’ of evangelical pastors. Maybe we could include the scummo scorpion and potato head as entrees. The hungry big cats, wolves, and bears may suffer from indigestion but then give them l’acqua minerale or Eno to drink afterwards (lol).
Hitler was born a Catholic, Christ was born a Jew! Makes you wonder what all the fuss is about! Why not just follow the indigenous people of Australia and most of the Pacific Islands – a belief in Vanua – a spiritual connection between people, land (flora, fauna, food) and sea (food source) = an identity with community, family, clan and language group. They follow a non-fanatical, non-fundamentalist religious way = love, peace and security. But, alas, now threatened by climate change impacts.
Well, they did until Christian missionaries introduced the concepts of shame, purity, God, etc, etc. Now? Not so much….
Similarly, the historical efforts of Christian churches to infiltrate the traditional beliefs of Australia’s First Nations peoples in Central Australia (and elsewhere) are a disgrace. The assumptions involved are alarming.
Here’s a few more for the list.
‘ In the mouths of its advocates, “Judeo-Christian” is typically followed by an emotive word:
-fanaticism
-fundamentalism
-exceptionalism
What do we -humanity- have to do to instil a faith in critical thought rather than blind faith?
As one trained in theology/ religious doctrine by the Jesuits (with absolutely zero religious conversion efforts or indeed belief promoted or transferred in one variant or another ) I was given enough of a grounding to at least appreciate what the logic(if any) underlying various religious beliefs might be and to appreciate where the “gift of faith” might become essential in each case. While also getting an excellent grounding in historical analysis I learned several things.
The most important being that religious structures can add a great deal to many people’s lives
The next being that religious variations have underpinned wars that are the most vicious and have killed more people even than water wars
The question always arises how such savage and judgmental behaviours can arise from the wide varieties of definition and interpretation of a single (?) supernal being (of unprovable existence in any of the multiple forms ascribed)
The regular use of religion to launch, justify, and execute stunningly vicious and inhumane wars is something that throws the bases of all the religions involved into doubt
All these observations would appear to be applicable to the ghastly continuing situations and actions observed in the Middle East where the power imbalances amplify the asymmetries and consequent continuing savagery-with occupation of land the clear goal once the rhetoric is cleared away
To slightly misquote quote Gandhi: Western civilisation? What a good idea…..
Underneath all the BS about ‘Christianity, Zionism, shared values, blah, blah, blah’, are two things: money and power. As always. Netanyahu and Trump are two monsters cut from the same cloth; both are desperate to avoid having their a*ses slung into gaol for a range of crimes from rape to fraud to embezzlement. Judeo-Christian values? Only if you can make money and knock the other guy off while raking it in, quoting the Bible while you do it.
Because so many people suffer from it, Religion is a form of mental illness and is disregarded by so many medical practitioners
The Doctrine of Discovery promoted by popes Nicholas V and Alexander VI gave license to European countries to seize land and subjugate non-Christians. The Netanyahu regime is implementing their version of this doctrine.
Apparently the one church on the rise in the USA is the Russian orthodox. Popular amongst younger white blokes that like going to the gym. (David Marr – late night. Live on RN a couple of weeks ago).