Our Godly Constitution

“Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”

Proverbs 22:28

The Constitution of Australia is the supreme law under which the Australian Commonwealth Government operates. It was approved in referendums held between 1898 and 1900 by the people of the Australian colonies. So if the wording of the Constitution confirmed that Australia was founded on Christian principles, there should be no argument — right? However, argument there was, especially over the inclusion of God in the wording. Some people went to remarkable lengths to prevent God from taking His rightful place in our Constitution.

The Father of Federation

Henry Parkes, known as the Father of Federation, sensed that Australia had a special destiny and called for Australians to be “one people with a destiny.” Parkes believed in our Christian heritage and was quoted as saying, “We are pre-eminently a Christian people — as our laws, our whole system of jurisprudence, are based upon and interwoven with our Christian belief.” He arranged the 1890 Federation Conference, considered the first real step towards Federation. Although he did not live to see Federation in 1901, Parkes had put down a firm foundation on which others later built.

The spiritual battle for the Constitution

The move to Federation provided the perfect opportunity for Christians to assert their conviction that the new Commonwealth would be a Christian nation. Protestant churches and groups such as the New South Wales Council of Churches pressed not only for the recognition of God, but also for Parliament to be opened with prayer.

The Seventh-day Adventists, though small in number, mounted a very effective counter-campaign. Fearful of restrictions on working on Sundays, they distributed tracts door-to-door in tens of thousands and won over 22,000 signatures to their petition against any religious clause in the Constitution. As a result, God was omitted at the Federal Convention meeting in Adelaide in 1897, and the first referendum on Federation in 1898 failed.

A Catholic, the cultured Adelaide barrister Patrick McMahon Glynn, was recruited to move the restoration of God at the next Convention in Melbourne. Glynn succeeded, and the Convention approved a preamble in which the Australian people, “humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God,” agreed to unite in a Federal Commonwealth. However, these were not the words of Glynn but of one of the Constitution’s co-authors — a man who would later become Australia’s Prime Minister three times.

Alfred Deakin (1856–1919)

Alfred Deakin, co-author of Australia’s Constitution and the nation’s Prime Minister on three occasions, is one of our most famous politicians. He is the man we predominantly have to thank for the passing of the Constitution through the English House of Commons, allowing it to become law in Australia.

Born in Victoria in 1856, Deakin became a Christian statesman — the nation’s first Attorney-General, and the man credited with selecting Canberra as the location of the national capital. When Australia’s first constitution was being drafted, it was essential that the wording be just right. Deakin, as one of the co-authors, devoted himself to many hours of prayer to get the mind of God for that precise wording, and was delighted when the Constitutional Convention in Melbourne passed the preamble inclusion: “humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God.”

In the concluding words of his book The Federal Story, Deakin remarked that “Federation and the Australian Constitution were providential and were secured only by a series of miracles.” After the colonies decided to join together in Federation, he offered a prayer of thanksgiving in which he asked, “God preserve this people… Thy blessing has rested upon us here, and we pray that it may be the means of creating and fostering through all Australia a Christlike citizenship.”