Banjo's Religion

​It's been said that when people settle in a new country, to feel at home, they have to fill the unfamiliar landscape with their own myths and heroes. Andrew ‘Banjo’ Patterson was one of the poets who sang larger-than-life figures from the bush into the heart-scape of Australia over a century ago, just as our rough colonies were melding into a nation.
 
The image of the intrepid man from Snowy River hurling his horse down a steep High-Country slope has been etched into the minds of generations of Australians. Schoolkids still delight in telling the story of the bearded bushie from Ironbark tricked into thinking his ‘bloomin’ throat had been cut’ by a wily barber.
 
Banjo’s melancholy song of the lone swagman throwing himself into a billabong to escape the police lingers on as our unofficial national anthem and tugs at the heart strings of Aussies a long way from home. And, somewhere in the back-country of our collective imagination, the carefree drover Clancy of the Overflow still sings as he musters cattle on sunlit plains stretching away and away.

​Banjo Patterson was crowned the king of all the early Australian folk poets by critic Douglas Stewart, because of ‘his instinctive understanding that the first thing a balladist should do is to tell a story.’ Though he was a city-based lawyer and journalist, Banjo was also a skilled horseman who had ridden far and wide across the back-country of NSW and Queensland, gathering glimpses of bush characters he met along the way. These ordinary folk crowded into his inner-archive and he immortalised them in print as part of the Australian legend.
 
Returning from Ironbark (Stuart Town) in the hills above Burrendong Dam the other day, I started wondering about the spiritual life of this poet who had gifted the whole nation so many vivid personalities. My research showed that Banjo’s thoughts on religion were pretty scarce. I found just one poem My Religion (1905) – a self-confident dismissal of all formal expressions of faith in favour of the more manly ‘Mateship’ creed preached by Henry Lawson and other writers of The Bulletin school. 
 
Let Romanists all at Confessional kneel,
Let the Jew with disgust turn from it,
Let the mighty Crown Prelate in Church pander zeal,
Let the Mussulman worship Mahomet.
From all these I differ — truly wise is my plan,
With my doctrine, perhaps, you’ll agree,
To be upright and downright and act like a man,
That’s the religion for me.
 
I will go to no Church and to no house of Prayer
To see a white shirt on a preacher.
And in no Courthouse on a book will I swear
To injure a poor fellow-creature.
For parsons and preachers are all a mere joke,
Their hands must be greased by a fee;
But with the poor toiler to share your last “toke,” (slang word for smoke)
That’s the religion for me.
 
Let Psalm-singing Churchmen and Lutherans sing.
They can’t deceive God with their blarney;
They might just as well dance the Highland Fling,
Or sing the fair fame of Kate Kearney.
But let man unto man like brethren act,
My doctrine this suits to a T,
The heart that can feel for the woes of another,
Oh, that’s the religion for me.

A century later, many Aussies would probably share his sentiments about churches and churchmen. As I chewed this over, I wondered if Banjo might rethink his cynicism if he’d looked a bit closer at the picture I’d seen as a historian. True, the churches of the 19th century had struggled to shed their formal European buildings and language. But what he doesn’t see is that from the earliest days of the colonies, good men and women of vital faith had rolled up their sleeves to feed, house, heal and educate the ‘poor toilers’ he claimed he spoke for.
 
I’m sure Banjo would be surprised to be told he was, in fact, echoing half the advice that Jesus gave listeners in a callous Roman world – yes, to love your neighbour as yourself, but first, to love God with your whole heart as well as your intelligence and strength. In this 21st century Australia, we are still trying to explain ourselves to ourselves without reference to our Creator, as if we had invented this country, our culture and its people without interference from the divine.
 
Banjo’s collection of colourful bush heroes are limited and fading fast. Australia has so many authentic heroes waiting in the shadows whose stories need telling. New generations could rediscover the Jesus who has done so much to inspire the very best in our country.
 
That’s the religion for me!