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Festival of Light Australia was an Australian ministry promoting Christian family values from 1973 to 2008, when its name was changed to FamilyVoice Australia.

It was founded in Adelaide in 1972, with the name and inspiration from Nationwide Festival of Light founded in the United Kingdom in 1971. It was less active after the mid 1980s, but has undergone reconstitution since 2003. Its stated mission was to be "a Christian ministry to the nation, promoting true family values in the light of the wisdom of God".

History

The Australian Festival of Light was inspired by the UK Nationwide Festival of Light [1], which was founded by Mary Whitehouse, Malcolm Muggeridge and others in 1971. The Nationwide Festival of Light changed its name to CARE (Christian Action Research & Education) in 1983.

News of the UK Nationwide Festival of Light soon caught the attention of the Australian Community Standards Organisation (CSO), which had recently merged with the South Australian Moral Action Committee.[2] Key members of the Moral Action Committee included Rev Lance Shilton, Rector of Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Adelaide and later Anglican Dean of Sydney; Dr John Court, then senior lecturer in psychology at Flinders University, and Peter Daniels.[2] South Australian delegates at a CSO meeting in Melbourne in 1972 led the move to hold “a nationwide act of Christian witness, similar to that conducted in Britain last year (Festival of Light)”.[3]

Rev Lance Shilton then initiated an interdenominational steering committee to establish the Australian Festival of Light at a meeting in Toorak Gardens, Adelaide, in November 1972.[4] The committee appointed Dr Court as chairman; Rev Shilton and Mrs Roslyn Phillips as deputy chairmen, and Peter Daniels as publicity officer.

The Festival of Light was formally launched in Adelaide in June 1973 with a media conference and the release of a new book by Dr Court and SA journalist Helen Caterer, Stand Up and Be Counted,[5] which aimed to motivate readers to defend publicly their Christian faith and values.

Lance Shilton’s network of contacts through the Australian Evangelical Alliance and the Community Standards Organisation led to the formation of independent branches of Festival of Light (which later included the Community Standards Organisation) in all Australian states.[6] Rev Fred Nile accepted leadership of the NSW branch in July 1973, becoming the full-time director in January 1974. Mr Nile greatly increased the organisation’s activity and public profile.[7]

Rev Fred Nile was elected national co-ordinator of the Australian Festival of Light at a meeting of state branch representatives in late 1974, where John Court was appointed the first national chairman. David and Roslyn Phillips were appointed editors of the national magazine Light and the first edition in January 1975 featured the campaign against the controversial Family Law Bill. Light was published four times a year and mailed to supporters in all state branches.

In 1981 Nile was first elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council as leader of the Call to Australia Party, later renamed the Christian Democratic Party (CDP). Call to Australia and the CDP have always been independent of Festival of Light, which was never a political party. Nile has continued as a member of the NSW parliament, but retired as director of the NSW Festival of Light in May 2007.

Aims

The aims of the Australian Festival of Light were first formulated at the meeting of state representatives in late 1974:
1. to mobilise Australians to support purity, love, and family life;
2. to proclaim the value of Christian standards of behaviour for family and community life;
3. to persuade national and community leaders to strengthen the family as the basic unit of society;
4. to resist influences that lower moral standards and threaten human dignity;
5. to research the social implications of Biblical ethics and the effects of modern trends on family and community life.

Publications

1. Light – a quarterly 12-page magazine sent to subscribers throughout Australia as well as some MPs and media outlets, from January 1975 to May 2008.
2. Festival Focus South Australia – a four-page newspaper initially sent to subscribers in SA seven times a year. From 2003, separate state editions were gradually published, beginning with SA and Queensland. In 2008 there were separate quarterly editions of Festival Focus for the five mainland Australian states.

Events

Festival of Light hosted many events including visits by overseas speakers such as:

1973 Mary Whitehouse

The first major event of the Australian Festival of Light was the visit by “Clean-up TV” campaigner Mary Whitehouse to Sydney and Adelaide in October 1973. It was Shilton, while on a trip to Britain in May 1973, who invited Whitehouse to Australia.[2] Whitehouse spoke to overflow crowds in the Sydney Town Hall and the Adelaide Festival Theatre, and led a march of 10,000 people to Light’s Vision in Adelaide on 14 October 1973, where the Festival of Light Proclamation setting out the breadth of its concerns was read out and endorsed by a total crowd of over 12,000.[6]

Mary Whitehouse later recalled her first visit to Australia as one of the big events of her life. She told her biographer Max Caulfield that because of the intense media interest, “I became better known in Australia in three and a half weeks than I did in Britain in ten years.”[8]

1976 Malcolm Muggeridge

Malcolm Muggeridge’s Australian Festival of Light speaking tour was equally successful in October 1976.[9] An estimated 35,000 people heard his keynote address to the Family Celebration in Sydney’s Hyde Park on 10 October; he spoke to a capacity audience in Adelaide’s Festival Theatre on 14 October and significant crowds in other cities throughout Australia and New Zealand.[7]

1978 Mary Whitehouse

Mary Whitehouse successfully toured Australia for a second time in September 1978, amid controversy over UK court action she had initiated against an offensive poem about Jesus published in a homosexual paper.[7] Student demonstrators picketed her meetings and Brisbane police arrested two youths and five girls who threw strawberry pies at her.[10] Despite the protests, large crowds came out in support – including 5000 at an Adelaide march Mary led from Rymill Park to Parliament House on 10 September, 800 in Hobart, 1000 in Brisbane, 2000 in Melbourne, 1500 in Perth where she was welcomed by Premier Sir Charles Court, and 4000 in the Sydney Town Hall on 27 September.[11]

1981 Mother Teresa

The Australian Festival of Light and some Catholic leaders invited Mother Teresa to Australia to mark the 1981 United Nations International Year of Disabled Persons. [11] Mother Teresa was the guest speaker at the Festival of Light “The Handicapped Child in the Community” conference, attended by 800 people.[11]

1996 Gianna Jessen

Festival of Light Australia sponsored the Australian tour of US teenage singer and pro-life activist Gianna Jessen in February and March 1996.[12] Jessen was born alive after an attempted saline abortion left her with brain damage and cerebral palsy. She spoke to packed venues in all states and territories.[13]

Mixed response

The 1973 Proclamation of Australian Festival of Light reached out to “all people of good will”, but most of those who responded had a Christian background. In 1974 Flinders University historians Hilliard and Warhurst noted that supporters of Festival of Light were mainly Protestants of the Evangelical tradition and conservative Catholics, and that some other Christians tended to be critical of the organisation’s “overconfident presentation of complex moral issues in simple black and white terms”.[2] Hilliard and Warhurst said that despite Festival of Light's promotion among churches around South Australia, some clergy were unresponsive and many congregations did not get involved.[2]

Sometimes there was open controversy. A week before the 1973 visit of Mary Whitehouse, students at the University of Adelaide, Flinders University and the South Australian Institute of Technology (now the University of South Australia) began a “Festival of Fright” campaign against the Australian Festival of Light events, saying: “These latter-day Calvins should be met by as much opposition as freedom-loving people can muster…”[2]

In 1978, South Australian Attorney-General Peter Duncan criticised the Festival of Light, saying: “I believe there is a desperate need to develop a tolerant society… I don’t think this sort of hysteria and prejudging that is generated by the Festival of Light does anything to further this move.”[14] Duncan also spoke out against the 1978 Festival of Light-sponsored visit to Australia by Mary Whitehouse, calling her “an agent of darkness” and an “opponent of freedom”.[15]

21st century: reconstitution

On 9 March 2004 a special meeting of the South Australian Festival of Light and Community Standards Organisation adopted a new national constitution and changed its name to Festival of Light Australia. The national office in Adelaide provides administrative support to branches in other states. The NSW Festival of Light Community Standards Organisation remains a separate organisation.

The renewal of the Queensland branch, led for many years by George Cook until his death in November 1994, commenced in 2003 with the appointment of Geoffrey Bullock as state officer, an advisory board of fourteen, and a branch committee chaired by Andrew McColl. The renewal of the Victorian branch, led for many years by Bernie Tenni, commenced in 2005 with the appointment of an advisory board of sixteen. In 2006 Pastor Peter Stevens was appointed Victorian state officer.

In Western Australia, renewal of the branch commenced in 2006 with the appointment of Mr Richard Egan as state officer and an advisory board of seventeen, including several heads of churches.

Festival of Light Australia became "FamilyVoice Australia" on 1 July 2008.[16]

Awards

David and Roslyn Phillips were awarded Centenary Medals in 2001, respectively for "service to family policy and community education as Chairman of the Festival of Light"[17] and for "service to family activities and community education through the Festival of Light".[18]

The national magazine Light has won six awards for excellence in religious journalism from the Australasian Religious Press Association.

References

  1. ^ John Capon (1972). ...and there was light: The story of the Nationwide Festival of Light. Lutterworth Press, London.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Hilliard, David and John Warhurst. "Festival of Light". Current Affairs Bulletin February 1974, p. 14
  3. ^ Community Standards Organisation, SA Branch News Letter. August 1972.
  4. ^ Shilton, Lance. Speaking out: a life in urban mission: the autobiography of Lance Shilton. Centre for the Study of Australian Christianity, Sydney. 1997, Chapter 11.
  5. ^ Court, J.H. with Helen Caterer. Stand Up and Be Counted. Lutheran Publishing House, Adelaide. May 1973.
  6. ^ a b Court, J.H. Law, Light and Liberty. Lutheran Publishing House, Adelaide. June 1975, Chapter 13.
  7. ^ a b c Nile, Fred. Fred Nile, an autobiography. Strand Publishing, Sydney. 2001, p 90-104.
  8. ^ Caulfield, Max. Mary Whitehouse. A R Mowbray & Co Ltd, Oxford. 1975. p. 120
  9. ^ Nile, Fred. The Gentle Prophet Pays a Visit: Malcolm Muggeridge in Australia. Australian Festival of Light, Sydney, 1977.
  10. ^ "Anti-porn crusader Mary Whitehouse hit by pies". The Advertiser. 1978-09-20.
  11. ^ a b c Nile, Fred. Fred Nile, An Autobiography. Strand Publishing, Sydney, 2001. Chapter 9-10.
  12. ^ "Gianna - glad to be alive". Light. Australian Festival of Light and Community Standards Organisation, February 1996. p 12.
  13. ^ "How the media saw Gianna". Light. Australian Festival of Light and Community Standards Organisation. May 1996. p. 12.
  14. ^ "Duncan Slams Back at Mary W". The News. 1978-09-04.
  15. ^ "Views on Whitehouse 'not necessarily' official". The News. 1978-09-05.
  16. ^ "About Us - History". FamilyVoice Australia. 2010. Retrieved 8 September 2010. On 1 July 2008, Festival of Light Australia changed its name to FamilyVoice Australia.
  17. ^ PHILLIPS, David Michael Search Australian Honours
  18. ^ PHILLIPS, Roslyn Helen Search Australian Honours

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