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Multi-faith religion a myth-conception
Southern Cross News
SYDNEY (2/8/2005)-- Bishop Robert Forsyth will use a national radio platform to chide the government for plans to promote a mythic multi-faith religion.
The bishop of South Sydney is part of a panel of guests interviewed for the ABC's Religion Report, set to be broadcast tomorrow morning [February 9] at 8.30 am.
Bishop Forsyth has told the Religion Report that a government investigation into the suitable expression of religion in Australia is tackling a non-issue.
"There's not a great issue of religious intolerance in Australia, but the government seems to want to encourage a sort of multi-faith approach," Bishop Forsyth says.
"But multi-faith is not another religion - it doesn't exist as a religion."
High profile Christian and Muslim leaders have criticised the Federal Government over calls to tighten control of religious activity following September 11.
They have snubbed proposals in a new report, 'Religion, Cultural Diversity and Safeguarding Australia' which examines Australia's 28 largest religions and outlines programs to monitor potentially divisive religious activity.
They include replacing the morning reading of the Lord's Prayer in Parliament with a rotating roster of prayers, making newly arrived foreign clergy attend a TAFE course on other faiths, establishing a multi-faith council and the monitoring of religious websites for vilification.
The report was released in December by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs. It states that religion can be "a significant destroyer" of a country's wellbeing.
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