In this blog, Michael Stockwell explores the intersection between the Lutheran Two-Kingdoms Paradox and Rural Fundamentalism and its impact on Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s approach to politics.

“It must be admitted the Government have a responsibility to protect the people against themselves.”

Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, 1954.

Queensland Parliamentary Debates 210 (30.11.1954) 1724.

Every historical movement, no matter how widespread the support, will always have opposition. In a period of rapid social change, 1960s Modernism transformed Western culture through the rise of secular humanism and the development of numerous liberation movements. Exacerbated by the radical reformist policies of the Whitlam federal government (1972-1975) in Australia, religious fundamentalists soon looked to their politicians to enforce righteous order over what they saw as a crisis of social morality. As a result, right-winged anti-gay rhetoric, emblematic of ultraconservative ideology, promoted widespread vilification of the gay community across Australia.

In Queensland, the fear mongering Christian fundamentalist movement promoted a charismatic, homegrown, country Sunday school teacher-turned-politician Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who stood as a bulwark against progressive attitudes and social rights. This earned him the title, the Hillbilly Dictator. Previous posts in this series have explored examples of Bjelke-Petersen’s vilification of women’s reproductive rights and Queensland’s gay community.

It begs the question, how could a devout Lutheran Christian, bought up in a faith that fundamentally espouses love and forgiveness, use the tenets of his faith and the protection of virtue and morality to become what some consider the most ruthless persecutor of homosexuals in Australian history? The answer, in part, may lie in understanding a phenomenon that is unique to Queensland: the intersection between the Lutheran Two-Kingdoms Paradox and Rural Fundamentalism.

Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s political ideology is considered to be heavily influenced by his father, Carl George Bjelke-Petersen, a Lutheran pastor who enforced a classical Lutheran upbringing. At the time of Bjelke-Petersen’s inauguration in 1968, 76.2% of Queensland’s voting populace identified as religious, according to the Queensland Census. Having inherited his premiership from Methodist preacher Frank Nicklin, Bjelke-Petersen was well positioned to continue, and build upon the flourishing conservative, religious agenda of his primarily rural voting base.

THE TWO-KINGDOMS PARADOX

The Lutheran church is the oldest Protestant church, dating back to the sixteenth-century Reformation when Martin Luther challenged the teachings and practices of the Catholic church. Luther insisted that the Bible is the authority that decides what the church should teach and do.

In Lutheran teachings, the distinction between the actions of a private person and a public authority is known as the ‘Two-Kingdoms Paradox’. There exists in classical Lutheranism a theological relationship between church and state as seen through the lens of two distinct, yet interdependent spheres of influence known as God’s left-hand and right-hand kingdoms.

The state, operating under God’s Left-Hand Kingdom, maintains order and justice in the secular realm serving the common good as an authority that is limited by God’s law. The Right-Hand Kingdom focuses on redeeming the world through faith, love, and the proclamation of the Gospel. While the church (Right-Hand Kingdom) relies on the state (Left-Hand Kingdom) for protection and order, it is not subject to the state’s control. Classical Lutheranism generally teaches obedience to the state, recognising God-given authority, providing the state does not command actions that violate God’s law.

The Two-Kingdoms Paradox was embodied in the duality of Bjelke-Peterson the Lutheran, and Bjelke-Petersen the Premier. In his personal spiritual endeavours, God’s (right-hand) kingdom was a kingdom of grace and mercy, not of wrath and punishment (left-hand kingdom). However, in his capacity as a Premier, he was called to exercise his primary function to maintain order.

As Luther originally wrote in 1520 in An Open Letter to the Christian Nobility:

“In it [the right-hand kingdom] there is only forgiveness, consideration for one another, love, service, the doing of good, peace, joy, etc. But the [left-hand] kingdom of the world is a kingdom of wrath and severity. In it there is only punishment, repression, judgement, and condemnation to restrain the wicked and protect the good. For this reason it has the sword, and Scripture calls a prince or lord ‘God’s wrath,’ or ‘God’s rod’.”

In Lutheran doctrine, the Kingdom (or in its modern formation, government) is seen as an extension of the family and its patriarchal authority. This ideological position is at its core anti-democratic, as it creates the opportunity for rulers to disregard the wishes of their citizens if they perceive those wishes to be against the constituents’ best interest.

RURAL-FUNDAMENTALISM

Throughout Queensland’s history, most Queensland Lutherans have resided in more regional and rural locations. This rural base of Lutheranism was considerably more influenced by long held early frontier culture and values, in both religion and politics. George Dollar described historic fundamentalism as: “the literal exposition of all the affirmations and attitudes of the Bible and the militant exposure of all non-Biblical affirmations and attitudes”. This description of fundamentalism was embodied by Bjelke-Petersen’s paternalist guidance of Queensland society towards his rural fundamentalist values and the vilification of alternative viewpoints.

Bjelke-Petersen’s political approach could, on the surface, be deemed to be grounded in a continuation of the Classical Lutheranism of his upbringing. However, the influence of Queensland’s frontier culture on this first generation Australian acted to distil his already well-established position on faith and morality into what is known as Lutheran Fundamentalism. This emphasises the authority of the Bible, the doctrine of justification by grace through faith, and the importance of living a life consistent with Christian teachings.

Political author M.B. Cribb further refined this position describing Bjelke-Petersen as the personification of most of the religious and political values of Lutheran-based ‘rural fundamentalism‘. This strain of rural ultra-conservatism was said by Cribb to be at the core of Queensland society and politics leading up to Bjelke-Petersen’s inauguration as state Premier in 1968. According to Cribb, it espoused a set of values which held that:

“All that is worthy and useful in morality, religion, societal values and the economy stems from the land and its usage … that old and traditional beliefs and values are more worthy than others, that they should be accorded the greatest respect and therefore that questioning or dissenting from them is, by implication, wrong.”

Cribb’s analysis was quoted approvingly and at length by other Queensland political scientists, particularly with reference to the influence of the Premier’s personality wielded at the behest of “religious fundamentalist groups”:

“It is the personal authority of the Premier which represents a basic force in Queensland politics…His remarkable length of term in office has been sustained rather than threatened by outrageous remarks, commitment to charlatans and ruthless suppression of dissent. His direct involvement in major questions of political strategy, economic policy-making and relationships with other levels of government means that he bestrides the Queensland political scene like a colossus, and shapes the behaviour and aspirations of all those around him.”

With his approach to leadership, grounded in a Left-Hand-Kingdom ideology that positioned the state as having a responsibility to uphold moral order, Bjelke-Petersen governed Queensland for two decades. During the 1970s and 1980s, he held strong to his expectation that the government promote values that aligned with rural Lutheran fundamentalist morality. This philosophy translated into policies that imposed ultra-conservative family values on Queensland’s populace, zealously opposed homosexuality, and emphasised dictatoralesque law and order.

Michael Stockwell is a PhD candidate with the Centre for Heritage and Culture, and the School of Law and Justice at the University of Southern Queensland. He has a background in hospitality, classical music, education and law and works in the law and IAS departments at the University of Southern Queensland. His doctoral research investigates the prosecution, persecution and vilification of homosexual men in Queensland during the Bjelke-Petersen era and how the experiences in their formative years affect their willingness to engage with legal and administrative systems later in life. After initially beginning his tenure at the Australian Women’s History Network as an intern in 2024, he has since become a Commissioning Editor working under Managing Editors Dr Paige Donaghy and Dr Ana Stevenson.

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