More than 230 people gathered for the first Melbourne Catholic Professionals (MCP) luncheon of 2024, where Greg Sheridan AO, foreign editor for The Australian, shared his encouraging experience of ‘coming out’ as a Christian in public life.
Despite a long career in journalism—he says he has been ‘an opinionated newspaper columnist’ since he was a boy and before he had an ‘outlet’—it has only been in the last several years he has chosen to become more vocal in his defence of Christianity.
He never actively hid his Catholicism, but sensing that the public culture was becoming more ‘hostile’ to Christian belief and values, he felt prompted to do more.
If chance gives you a public microphone, you have a duty to speak in defence of the truth and, more basically, to stand up for your friends.
‘I don’t want to overstate that,’ he admitted. ‘We Christians are not persecuted in Australia, but we live in a now actively hostile public culture … So that’s not an argument for the past. The past is a foreign country. It had its own demons, its own wickedness. It’s simply recognising a changing circumstance. Now, in that circumstance, if chance gives you a public microphone, you have a duty to speak in defence of the truth and, more basically, to stand up for your friends.’
Mr Sheridan shared that BA Santamaria and Archbishop Daniel Mannix were among his greatest mentors and influences. Both were unafraid, in their time, of taking a public stand for those things.
Mr Sheridan acknowledged that he was not a person of ‘great virtue’, and sympathises with the figure of Nicodemus from the gospels, who, despite knowing who Jesus was, keeps it to himself and only after his crucifixion comes out and organises a burial for his friend. His primary fear was not persecution so much as ‘the obvious failure of my life to mirror Christianity’.
‘It’s much classier to be a person of great virtue who has problems with the doctrine of the Trinity or transubstantiation or something,’ Mr Sheridan said. ‘I’m absolutely the reverse: a man of almost no virtue who nonetheless clings to the truth because the truth is true, and because it’s the only path to sanity.’
When I finally did ‘come out’ [as a Christian], I found the reaction was overwhelmingly friendly, even from people who absolutely objected and disagreed with everything I said or wrote.
Nevertheless, he received additional prompts from Jesus himself, who forthrightly commands his followers not to be ashamed of him before others (Luke 9:26; Mark 8:38; Matthew 10:33).
The first overtly religious book he published was God is Good For You (2018), a defence of ‘mere Christianity’ and the rationality of belief in God. The second, Christians: The urgent case for Jesus in our world (2021), explored the historicity of the gospels and how Christians around the world continue to bring new life to a troubled world.
‘To my astonishment, when I finally did “come out”, I found the reaction was overwhelmingly friendly,’ he said, ‘even from people who absolutely objected and disagreed with everything I said or wrote. And when you think about it, the range of behaviour we regard as fairly normal today is pretty wide.’
The positive reception was deeply encouraging to Mr Sheridan, and it led to some of the issues he discussed gaining a wider platform in otherwise secular media.
‘Every year there are wonderful Christian books published, much better than anything I’ve written. But they don’t get discussed in the secular culture much,’ he said.
Prominently atheist news anchors have allowed him to come on and discuss the importance of Christianity and belief in God; some people have begun to think more deeply about Christianity or even returned to the Church; despite profound disagreements at the level of politics, Mr Sheridan was also able to uncover the deeper religious experiences of some high-profile politicians. God is Good For You explores the faith of politicians who diverge widely when it comes to politics, from Mary Easson and Kristina Keneally to Malcolm Turnbull AC, Kevin Rudd AC and Kim Beazley AC.
We have every reason to be hopeful and even optimistic because we follow a God who knows his way out of the grave.
His writing on Christian themes has also offered moments of solidarity with other believers and opportunities to hear from Christians around the world doing incredible work. He cited one interview he did for his book Christians with Gemma Sisia, a young woman who now lives in Africa with her family building schools and teaching children.
‘At the end of that interview, I felt better about being a human being,’ he said.
He encouraged everyone at the luncheon do the same, to be unafraid of being a public Christian—not only because one day we will have to account for ourselves before God, but because it offers ‘moments of grace and happiness’ beyond our expectations. It can also be ‘great fun’.
‘All of this resolves into saying that coming out as a public Christian is great fun, and it’s worth doing, and it brings the truth to people, and it encourages fellow Christians. In many ways these are difficult times, but we have every reason to be hopeful and even optimistic because we follow a God who knows his way out of the grave.’
