Now that time has done its work and the shitstorm that is Cyclone Media has trashed the place and moved on to greener pastures, it feels like a more appropriate time to talk about something that happened in the Australian Football League (AFL) recently.

In what must be some kind of record, the former CEO of the National Australia Bank, Andrew Thorburn, resigned as Chief Executive of the Essendon Football Club (EFC) in early October 2022 after one single day in the role. It makes for an interesting statistic in an industry obsessed with them, but the furore over his appointment revolves around the manner of his departure.

While I often have an opinion—sometimes, a quite visceral one—about current events, it always seems premature to talk about them too quickly, since most commentary is a whole lot of hot air that quickly evaporates anyway. I would rather appear passé than just dump a hot take during a storm and move on to leave the clean-up for someone else. Often, amongst the detritus, the shards and shattered details within the story of the event still remain. More importantly, in the wake of all the outrage and sanctimonious bullshit that tends to accompany such issues, it can be easier to reconstruct a scene and work out what might really have happened.

In this case, Thorburn resigned the executive position at Essendon in response to his refusal to disassociate himself with his church, which overtly condemns homosexuality and abortion. His public commentary since that departure has drawn attention to the purported dangers of linking religious belief to employment. These comments have made some valid points and are rhetorically measured, which I have to say makes for a pleasant change. He clearly has enough understanding of public relations not to fly off the handle like some entitled cultural dinosaur.

The statement made by the Essendon Football Club reads (in part) as follows:

As soon as the comments relating to a 2013 sermon from a pastor, at the City on the Hill church came to light this morning, we acted immediately to clarify the publicly espoused views on the organisation’s official website, which are in direct contradiction to our values as a Club.

The Board made clear that, despite these not being views that Andrew Thorburn has expressed personally and that were also made prior to him taking up his role as Chairman, he couldn’t continue to serve in his dual roles at the Essendon Football Club and as Chairman of City on the Hill.

—David Barham, EFC President

The strong inference here is that the club gave Thorburn an ultimatum: resign as chair of City on the Hill, and remain as CEO of Essendon Football Club—or, the opposite.

It is interesting to me that the mere fact of Thorburn’s religious belief clearly did not compromise his being appointed as CEO in the first place, as subsequent commentary has often either inferred or openly discussed. He was not discriminated against on the basis of religion per se; in fact, it was only when specifically egregious statements made by the church came to light that the club insisted that he distance himself from one organisation or the other, citing “a clear conflict of interest with an organisation whose views do not align at all with our values”. That is, the fact of his religious belief wasn’t the problem: the publicly stated position of the institution he was a senior member of was.

In response, Thorburn himself has said that

it is troubling that faith or association with a church, mosque, synagogue or temple could render a person immediately unsuited to holding a particular role. That is a dangerous idea, one that will only reduce tolerance for others and diversity of thought and participation in our community and workplaces.

This does point to the thorny aspect of this issue: is it merely the association with a given faith or church which is at issue here? Thorburn suggests it is, which is in keeping with EFC’s own statement that “these [were not] views that Andrew Thorburn has expressed personally”. Which in turn infers that Thorburn may not even hold such views—though of course both parties conveniently avoid explicitly stating whether he does in fact agree with them, or not.

Strength Through Unity, Unity Through Faith

The problem as I see it is that it is simple enough for a person to say something like, “well, I haven’t actually said that out loud so it’s presumptuous of you to assume I feel the same.” Which is a perfectly reasonable point to make.

However, the rational response to such a position would be to suggest “okay then, release a statement condemning those specific views and since there will be no further ethical confusion we can move on.” Personally, I don’t think that is anywhere near enough to remove the stain of such association, but it would certainly be a good start. It would earn some goodwill at the very least.

On the other hand—and this is conjecture—I suspect that something along those lines probably was put to Thorburn, and when he declined, the club was put in the unenviable position of having to protect that church’s (frankly indefensible) views on behalf of their own CEO, or to make him an ultimatum.

That Thorburn chose the church over the football club should be instructional. That’s where his loyalty lies; it’s where his priorities are.

And to be clear: that’s perfectly fine. Andrew Thorburn is entitled to his personal views. But he can’t then turn around and suggest that he has been vilified on the basis of his belief in god. He hasn’t been. He resigned as CEO. He wasn’t fired. Was he given an ultimatum which forced his hand? Probably—I would suggest almost certainly. But that’s not vilification. That’s called a hard decision, and it was his decision. I would have thought that someone paid millions and millions and millions of dollars for his so-called leadership and acumen might have understood that difficult decisions might be part of the territory.

Perhaps the most slippery aspect of Thorburn’s commentary lies in his easy appropriation of other religions. Not everyone who attends a mosque, or a synagogue, or even another Christian church, might expect to hear such brash and cruel statements made about homosexuality and abortion. It is bold of him to presume that other such religions would universally hold such extreme views, express them publicly, and then also wonder why they may impact the plausibility of a particularly senior and public-facing role.

Something tells me this much attention would not have been paid to him had he had merely been appointed as an accountant on a tiny fraction of his wage with almost zero public interest. Or if he were not Chairman of said church, but simply a parishioner. If you need to be alpha dog everywhere you go, then get ready for alpha attention.

I would be curious to hear what synagogue attendees in particular might think about drawing an explicit comparison between the “evil” of abortion and the “evil” of genocide in the concentration camps most commonly associated with the Holocaust. Same thing, right? Because that is precisely what the sermon released by City on the Hill did: abortion=concentration camp genocide.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone is something I once read somewhere, and I don’t think they were grandstanding in a glass house at the time, either.

De-Context

When it comes to principle it is often valuable to de-contextualise a situation, and then re-contextualise it in another way to see if it still stands to reason. That is, to take any lingering bias one might, as I clearly do, have against a church like City on the Hill.

Let’s say that it isn’t Thorburn in this situation; it is “John Doe, former CEO of A Bank”, and Doe’s beliefs are associated with something equally appalling but nothing to do with religion. Let’s say he is associated with an organisation which—it was later discovered—had made explicit statements in support of white supremacy, pointedly and unreservedly. For the sake of argument, let’s say Doe himself has never publicly expressed any specific view in support of white supremacist ideology, nor actively denied his participation within this group.

You’d think such a situation would warrant similar action from almost any public organisation as how the Essendon Football Club handled Thorburn’s exit. That is, a request for Doe to explicitly renounce the problematic or offensive aspects of his views, or face the consequences. If renunciation was too much, then the organisation would need to insulate itself by insisting on a discrete separation of values: the ultimatum that Doe either continues to act on behalf of his racist organisation, or for the football club. Simply because acting for both is untenable.

That doesn’t seem to be too much to ask in a situation where the club is willing to overlook Doe’s potentially problematic views in one specific area of his life, if they are convinced that his abilities in other areas would be worth the price. It’s a corporate culture after all, so we can’t assume any high-minded ethics here; it’s a business decision.

Contemporaneously, another incredibly affluent individual and one far more comfortable with the crude utility of financial power—Australia’s wealthiest citizen, Gina Rinehart—recently took her bat and ball and fifteen million dollars and departed her sports-washing deal with the Australian Diamonds netball team. She too refused to acknowledge, much less denounce, an incredibly insensitive position made by a close associate. In this case, several almost unbelievably racist comments her father—whose name Hancock Prospecting still bears—made in regard to First Nations Australians, decades ago on television. So as with the City on the Hill sermon, it’s a matter of public record, not hearsay.

In Rinehart’s case, she didn’t have a religious justification (or any justification, really) to offer in her own defence, so she simply cancelled the deal, showing just how cynical and disingenuous it had been in the first place.

Own Goals

You might find yourself wondering who on earth would defend John Doe in the previous example, because their very association with such an egregiously offensive position arguably makes them untenable by default. Rinehart conveniently owns her own company, so it is unsurprising she lacks any insight in regard to her own behaviour, being thoroughly insulated by the corpulence of her own mega-wealth.

Personally, one of the most irritating or disappointing aspects of this whole scenario, perhaps even from a corporate governance perspective, isn’t simply Thorburn’s opinions unto themselves, but Essendon’s lack of oversight in discovering them during their due “diligence”, or their expedient ignorance of them thereafter. Either it wasn’t diligent at all, or they knew about it and decided it wasn’t a deal-breaker… until it was made public, of course. Only then did it clash with these so-called “values”. I’d like to hope it was more negligence than ignorance, but you never know when it comes to corporate oversight. Which typically manifests in the form of some kind of circle-jerk “review” process. Reports, carefully prepared statements, a vision, a mission, that sort of shit.

Oh, did I not mention the review? How remiss of me. It seems to me that Thorburn clearly did some groundwork during his time reviewing the club… yes, that’s right. He headed up a review of the entire EFC corporate structure, being a big-deal bank CEO and all, whereupon part of his conclusion was to recommend himself as CEO. Read that sentence again if it staggered you the first time.

So he certainly managed to foment some interest by his enthusiasm and passion. In other words, to spruik his own suitability for the role. No doubt various club people were strategically reminded of his status as CEO of the National Australia Bank. Though… perhaps not his inglorious exit from that particular position after his grilling during the banking Royal Commission but, y’know, I’m sure he was diligent.

In fact, the biggest impediment when he did start the rumour mill about his own interest in the role was how on earth Essendon might lure someone who was used to being paid tens of millions of dollars (as these masters of the universe tend to be) to take such a remunerative step down to run a football club. Hence, I presume, Thorburn’s expressions of enthusiasm, and the eagerness of the local daimyos to entertain the notion of winning the emperor’s ear.

I heard more than one Essendon “insider”, by which I mean former stars or influential figures, speak highly of Thorburn while the review was still taking place. I remember because I, too, became interested in the prospect on the basis of those very comments. These people, after all, had met Thorburn and gained an impression of his character.

It’s a legitimately slippery slope, and I would be the first to admit that the number one reason any human being is likely to ignore obvious facts or evidence is an emotional response. And there clearly was one here—excitement. And sporting clubs in particular are driven as much by emotions like excitement, passion, and loyalty, as they are by logical acumen.

It follows reason that football clubs are especially challenging organisations to run in the face of so much emotionally-driven ignorance, all the way from the supporters up to the highest echelons of the Board. Read any post-game internet post after a loss, and most of what you’ll read are calls for heads to roll and how useless everyone is; after a win, it’s all glory, glory, hallelujah. It’s the win or the loss which colours the perspective, logic be damned.

Yet how Thorburn came to evade particular questions, or slip through the net of appraisal, is one thing, The matter of what is primarily at stake here is another. All of this pre-scandal rumination and excitement-building is ultimately a separate matter to the principle at hand: tolerance.

Amen to that

Let’s also not forget that this is also one of the incredibly arse-backward ethical dilemmas associated with religion itself. Our society tolerates all kinds of bigoted religious views under the umbrella of free speech—so often touted by people with really shitty opinions as justification for their proliferation—and to a certain extent that is a bitter pill we all just have to swallow. Because free speech is important. But it also isn’t unlimited. It’s worth considering why.

Many—but, I want to stress, not all—among the religiously-inclined apparently feel like mere tolerance is simply not enough. No; they need to be able to freely voice their medieval (in fact, pre-medieval) views in any and every context, even though many adjacent views wouldn’t be tolerated by any other group within society. It’s what, I imagine, confuses many conservative commentators when they are called out for sexism or racism or any number of similarly bigoted views in some public forum, and yet can walk into a particular place of worship on any given Sunday and hear those very same things being voiced quite clearly without remonstration.

Double standards

The City on the Hill church has apparently since removed the now-infamous sermon, and its text, from its website a few dithering days after it became public. Yet the sermon was released in 2013, and so has had almost a decade to fester, publicly available and presumably meant as a legitimate part of its doctrine. The sermon in question was made by the leader of the church, so it can’t be palmed off as some fringe view.

Therefore it seems that even the church itself understands that it has crossed a line. Which leads one to wonder, if faith was really the issue here (and not politics, or at least optics), why would they remove a tenet of that faith from their own website? Surely, if the principle of their beliefs was so important—or, y’know, ordained by god—then they would stand by those beliefs as Thorburn, credit where credit is due, apparently has.

The Essendon Football Club is a presumably secular organisation and business which has a vested interest in appealing to a broad scope of potential supporters. Many of whom, like myself, are atheists and/or hold radically different ethical beliefs to that of this particular church. A sporting club’s reasoning for shying away from offensive views such as these is obvious.

But why on earth would the church itself need to bow to such public pressure? Isn’t the point of a church to manifest the word of god? Aren’t there parts of The Book which say so? Every word of god is pure (Proverbs); no authority except that which god has established (Romans); the word of god will never fail (Luke), et cetera; basically, fuck all that profane shit. So why isn’t the message absolute?

That is, if a text is truly sacred stuff, it should have been perfect when it was uttered… shouldn’t it? So no secular power should ever be able to contradict it. If it comes from god, it’s always right, and won’t ever be wrong, even if it seems bigoted and on the nose to the uninitiated. And yet, here we are.

Or could it have been removed because the church isn’t just a church—it’s also a business, albeit one protected by incredibly generous tax exemptions and caveats in common law which do not apply to any other type of organisation other than some charities (most of which, in their original forms, were vehicles for prostheletysers under the guise of welfare).

All because of this thing called “faith”, which is what, exactly? By its very definition, faith is unfounded (or else it would be called “fact”). In other words, if it wasn’t unfounded, you wouldn’t need faith to believe in it. I don’t need to have faith to know that when I drop an apple it’ll fall to the ground. An understanding of physics tells me so. Even if I’m ignorant of science, observable physical properties illustrate those same rules, over and over, whether I understand them or not. Everyone experiences such phenomena equally. It doesn’t require revelation or epiphany.

The nature of religious belief in modern, purportedly-secular, societies is recognised out of respect, since those beliefs are protected in a way which no other unfounded belief is so protected. There’s a communal, or cultural, value placed on religion which because of the history of Western European society in particular has meant that even the Enlightenment couldn’t remove its influence entirely. And in some ways, sometimes, that influence can be a very positive thing.

But, this exception possibly explains why conspiracy theorists are another group who are frustrated and confused by the dichotomy between their unprotected-unfounded beliefs, and those protected-unfounded beliefs of religions. Because both views are basically the same thing, only one type of belief is protected and others are not. This is also why the unprotected-unfounded variety of belief tends toward ‘free speech absolutism’ as Elon Musk once described it.

Why the double standard? No matter what you think of conspiracy theorists, the question itself is a valid one. Because it is a direct contradiction.

Make no mistake, conspiracy theorists are absolutely desperate for their beliefs to be validated by society. That their particular faith or belief doesn’t enjoy the same privileges as religious faith or belief must, I imagine, be legitimately infuriating. That rejection is undoubtedly part of what makes certain individuals fall further into the rabbit-holes they’ve already lived in for some time. If their own society vilifies them, and yet seems to accept other people with unfounded beliefs, what other option do they have? Reject their closely-held beliefs? That’s harder than I think most people realise. It’s why religious people tend to stay religious over the course of their lives, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary (whether they choose to recognise it or not).

Therefore, the only rational choice for someone who holds irrational beliefs is to double-down and put up the barricades. The alternatives are often too confronting and too painful. However, before you get too haughty about such ignorance, consider that there are plenty of non-religious people with similarly rigid views, only in different categories. No opinion is absolute, so just choose your own most cherished one and think about some of its flaws—and if your answer is “it doesn’t have any”, then you’re just as ignorant as someone who insists the deep state runs everything.

So I ask: is it not worth offering a degree of compassion toward such people who, simply because their beliefs are not associated with an ancient deity, therefore do not hold an “acceptable” form of unfounded belief within their own community? I’m not arguing here for the views themselves to be given any kind of justification (because most of them are truly ridiculous), only that the people themselves who hold these beliefs must surely be suffering their own kind of passion—in the Catholic sense of the term.

Epistemological, or merely existential?

The questions which religion asks—or perhaps more accurately attempts to answer, and may actually avoid asking as often as not—are so colossal that even people of an evidence-based, scientifically-minded, atheistic view of the world must acknowledge that there could be something beyond a priori knowledge which is worth some serious consideration. Or even that, fundamentally, religion may prove enough of a psychological salve to a proportion of the population that it is worth maintaining despite its many, many problematic aspects.

These answers, embedded within such ancient traditions, stretch back thousands of years. Perhaps this is the reason why, say, podcasters who promote ivermectin as an alternative to vaccination may not be treated in quite the same way as those whose ruminations have stood the test of time. And, yet, there are still plenty of problems with even that ancient wisdom.

One might be do well to remember that the sermon made by the head of City on the Hill was offensive enough that the very church which created it and kept it on its website for almost ten years removed it. How, then, might anyone seriously turn around and suggest that the EFC was not absolutely right in asking their CEO—who was chairman of that church’s board—to choose between that same exiled sermon and a very public position at the head of their organisation?

This scenario has nothing to do with the fact that Andrew Thorburn holds religious beliefs in general. It is about several very specific beliefs and their ethical incompatibility with the ethos of a football club he purported to want to lead. Not just work for, lead. All Thorburn needed to do was step aside from City on the Hill, denounce those views, and he would have had a much more receptive audience.

If then he had been actively tossed aside by Essendon, he would have had a much stronger case to make. As it was, he didn’t do that. And so, by choosing to prioritise the ethics of his church—which stand in direct contrast to the ethics of the EFC—he has made the choice himself, which he is entitled to do. As a result, his inferred claims of religious discrimination have, rightly, largely fallen on deaf ears.

On the subject of speech and the freedoms accorded to it, George Orwell apparently once said, “if liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear,” which in this case includes telling Andrew Thorburn that he can’t have his moral cake and eat it, too.