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Hey, I've got a quick Undeceptions single for you. Today, the 3rd of February, is a pretty special day in Australian history, especially for Christianity. 232 years ago today, the first Christian message was preached to this implausible prison colony. MUSIC
It wasn't exactly the first European ceremony. That one happened a few days earlier on the 26th of January 1788, what is celebrated by some as Australia Day. On that day, the 11 ships of the First Fleet sailed up Sydney Harbour and as they did, Indigenous locals apparently lined the shores shouting and waving their spears. Perhaps they were the only ones who realised what a haunting day that was.
Around midday of that first Australia Day, the group of officers and marines rode ashore at Circular Quay, if any of you have been there. They raised the Union Jack, let off several rounds of gunfire,
drank four rounds of beer, ostensibly in honour of members of the royal family, and then gave a loud three cheers, which was apparently returned by those on board the ships. The whole thing sounds weirdly, presciently Australian. One officer recorded: "And just so the new town was christened." But there was nothing religious about that christening. There was no prayer, no Bible, no hymn singing, just lots of noise and beer.
We're not told what the chaplain to the colony thought of that first European, rollicking, irreligious celebration. His name was Richard Johnson. More people should know more about him, actually. He was a bit of an afterthought of the British Home Office. He only got the role of chaplain to the First Fleet.
Through the advocacy of the very famous former slave trader and convert John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace just a few years before. And the famous anti-slavery parliamentarian William Wilberforce. Those guys got together and selected Johnson. Anyway, Johnson probably didn't rank among those giants of 18th century Christianity. But just like Newton and Wilberforce, Johnson was an evangelical Anglican.
who saw his role in holistic terms, not just spiritual ones. He was a red-hot preacher, that's for sure. But he was also the colony's best farmer, according to wide report, and he passed on the skills to anyone who wanted to learn. He and his wife, Mary, were also in charge of schooling, and together they taught over 150 kids.
Johnson also famously engaged convicts and officers alike on equal terms, and he refused to play the role of moral policeman, which is what successive governors of the colony wanted from him. Perhaps most remarkable is Johnson's tireless efforts among the sick and dying. Against all advice, he regularly visited the diseased and putrid holds of all the ships that arrived in those first few years of the colony.
Ordinarily, sick convicts were just left to die. But one convict wrote home amidst the sickness and hunger of 1790 these words. Few of the sick would recover if it was not for the kindness of the Reverend Mr Johnson, whose assistance out of his own stores makes him the physician both of soul and body. I've often thought what a
Great description, that is, of what Christianity is meant to be in society. The physician, both of soul and body.
But on spiritual matters, Johnson fought an uphill battle. His relationship with the first governor, Arthur Phillip, was polite, but not exactly friendly, because Phillip wanted Johnson to deal with moral subjects in his sermons, not all the spiritual hocus-pocus that Johnson went on about Jesus dying for sins and all that. It's ironic, actually, that at the founding of modern Australia, the government was frustrated with the church for not moralising enough
Let that one sit. When Arthur Phillip left the colony in 1792, just four years into the founding, the real troubles for Johnson began because the caretaker governor for the next two years was Major Francis Grose, and he displayed open contempt for Johnson. He wanted to get church out of the way on a Sunday, so he ordered that services should be 6am in the morning and should take no longer than 45 minutes.
I think we can all agree that 45 minutes is a good idea, but 6 a.m.? And more than once, in the middle of Johnson's sermons, Gross ordered his soldiers to stand to attention and march out.
For five years, Johnson petitioned officials to construct a dedicated church building. They built schools, hospitals, pubs, houses, shops. Did I mention the pubs? But no church. And so eventually Johnson built it himself with his own money in 1793 at a cost we know of £67.12.
That church lasted five years before being burned down in suspicious circumstances. And it'd be another 10 years before they built a replacement church. Anyway, with all this in the background, I want to take us to the first church service on these shores.
I don't mean the first important ceremony or even the first spiritual ceremony. Those honours belong to the original custodians of the land. I want to take us to the first Christian service and the first Christian proclamation in Australia, just a few days after disembarkation on this day, 3rd of February, 1788.
Richard Johnson was eager to start this colony on the right Christian footing, even though it was mostly convicts. His secular superiors wanted a moral lesson, but Richard Johnson did nothing of the sort. He preached the heartbeat of Christianity, the truth upon which any real Christian church is built, a truth to inspire a fledgling nation.
The service on the 3rd of February was a solemn affair, certainly compared to the beer drinking ceremony a few days earlier. It was the first Sunday after disembarkation. Johnson set up his table with his Bible and his prayer book under a great tree, we're told. And in fact, there's a spot on the corner of Bly and Hunter streets in the city that marks the spot.
A few days ago, actually, I got to handle Johnson's very first fleet Bible, the Bible he actually preached on, on that day, 3rd of February, 1788. And I was a kid in a candy store.
So we're out the back of St Matthew's Manly actually on Australia Day, 26 January 2020 and we have Johnson's Bible in front. I'm wearing daggy white gloves and my friend Nathan Campbell is helping with this. So we have in front of me the Bible that Johnson preached from and let me just turn to the correct passage which is
Psalm 116 verse 12. So the whole colony is present under this great tree. 800 convicts nearly, a couple of hundred officers and their families. And what content one of the officers who was present wrote in his journal that the behavior of both officers and convicts was equally regular and attentive. So it seems like at least for this first church service, people were kind of into it. They sensed the drama of the occasion.
And everyone listened intently as Johnson opened this Bible in front of me and announced the reading, 116th Psalm, 12th verse. And I'm sure people were thinking, what idea would he choose to mark the founding of this implausible convict colony?
We know what the authorities wanted. They wanted a moral message, something like the Ten Commandments. But Johnson chose these few words in front of me. What shall I render unto the Lord?
At one level, this is a bizarre text for this occasion. The 800 convicts in Johnson's audience had spent eight long months chained in the dark and rancid hulls of their mobile prisons.
The benefits of the Lord that this text speaks of probably weren't the first things on their mind. But at another level, it was a great text to launch Australia's Christian history. For starters, I'm sure the convicts were relieved that Johnson didn't preach one of the many thou shalt nots that we find in the scriptures. And we do know that actually there was a sense of amazement in the air amongst convicts and officers that the First Fleet had arrived with so little incident or loss.
But there's a more important reason he chose this verse. And we do know that he chose this verse deliberately because it wasn't one of the set readings for the day. This text raises a question that is the heart of the Christian faith. We don't have a script for Johnson's sermon, but we do have a pamphlet he wrote a couple of years later outlining what he thought was most important. And so we don't have to guess what Johnson was getting at with this passage.
Psalm 116 verse 12 expresses a truth that is the Bible's essential contribution to the history of ideas. The idea is this. Christianity is about gratitude in response to God's gifts, not morality in pursuit of reward. That's what's in this text. What shall I render unto the Lord for all these benefits toward me? So many areas of our life operate on a performance reward principle.
Kids say at school, if you do this, I'll be your best buddy. The school system itself says, get good marks, you get the awards. Mark up, watch out. And when we get into the business world, it's even clearer. Perform well, we often hear, and you'll be promoted. Make a mistake and you'll be overlooked. And some people take that mindset into religion.
Perform these rituals, follow those rules, and God will reward you. And in a way, that was the message Arthur Philip and Major Gross wanted Richard Johnson to preach, especially to the convicts. Because, of course, performance reward is a form of control. It's a carrot and a stick. You can offer people heaven if they do good. You can warn them of hell if they do bad. But Johnson wouldn't have a bar of it. He preached justice.
what theologians call grace, what his friend John Newton called "amazing grace" in the song he wrote 15 years earlier. It's moralising religion, not Christianity, that asks "What shall I perform for the Lord to win his benefits?" Christianity asks "What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me already received?" The Christian life isn't motivated by reward or punishment, but by gratitude,
for the benefits, for the grace already received. And the reason this is such a big deal for an evangelical Anglican like Richard Johnson, for Christianity generally, is that the whole purpose of Jesus' death, so pretty much the central claim of the Christian faith, is that Jesus died for our wrongdoing so we could be forgiven.
Now, whether or not you believe that is not my point here. I'm just trying to underline that there's something structurally in Christianity that is totally opposed to the performance mentality. The thought that Christians would turn that around and say that their performance, rather than Christ's sacrifice, is what wins salvation is anathema. And this is what Richard Johnson was thinking when he made these 13 words the Christian foundation of the early Australian colony.
What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? Indeed, the very next verse says a reply. I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. So even responding to God's grace is not so much by doing good. It's taking hold of salvation and calling on his name.
From the first days of modern Australia, the Christian emphasis wasn't morality but grace. The news that Christ died for petty convicts, earnest priests, even for moralising thugs like Major Gross. As well as for neglectful materialists, thankless atheists and the smugly religious. For people everywhere.
This was the first doctrine preached in Australia on the 3rd of February 1788 because it's the most important doctrine. What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. See ya.
We're busy here at Undeceptions working on the new season. I've already got some cracking interviews with guests you're not going to want to miss. More about that soon. I'll be popping into your feed with these minis, or singles as we call them, a few times more in the coming weeks with random thoughts from around the world and short grabs from forthcoming interviews. And then we'll be back into full swing before you know it. I'm John Dixon with an Undeceptions single. Music