The big change: Future hope for the elect

Andrew Robinson | 30 January 2007

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John Ryan: Denham Court Anglican Church

John Ryan has served as a Liberal member of the NSW Upper House for almost 16 years, but was dropped for preselection in what he sees as the party’s recent swing to the right. He is an outspoken evangelical Christian, but raised the ire of other Christian politicians for supporting ‘safe injecting rooms’. Here he tells how he came to know Jesus, and what it means to be a Christian politician.

I came from a household that was always tribally Christian: my Dad was a Catholic, my Mum was a Protestant.

I generally understood religion to be something that you did, that you participated in.
I was happy to make my first Holy Communion and be confirmed as a Catholic, but I didn’t have a deeper understanding of what I was doing.

Sadly I didn’t have a childhood that was in any way optimal…by the age of 11 I was a client of the Department of Community Services.

They don’t intervene into families that are not in serious trouble, and mine was. I became involved with some level of petty crime, and got involved with people who were fairly unsavoury.

I ended up living as a voluntary placement in the Charlton homes.

It was a mission house run by Anglicare (then known as the Home Mission Society) to reach out to young boys.

The fellow who looked after me was a former Charlton boy who had himself found Christ. His name was Ted Davy.

I was very impressed with the marriage that he had with his wife Joanne. It was love that I hadn’t seen, and a family life I’d never experienced. It really wasn’t hard to convince me to become a Christian when I saw that Jesus was the source of this phenomenal regard, love and stability.

So really all I needed was for someone to explain the facts of the gospel and that I needed to make a personal commitment. It happened very quickly once I’d been at Charlton, and frankly, I was absolutely all for it.

Charlton was in my local neighbourhood, and I continued to go to my old school, Canterbury Boys. One of the most amazing things that I still remember was the reaction of my teachers within weeks of me becoming a Christian.

My demeanour, my behaviour, my approach to study was just miraculously different. They began to pull me aside to ask what happened, and I told them quite simply: I’ve become a Christian and I’m different. It was as remarkable and as noticeable as that.

I left Charlton in 1972 – they only held people until age 18 – and I wound up living in a Christian boarding house, and after messing up my HSC once I was successful the second time around: my opportunity to go to uni came via a teachers’ scholarship.

Given that as a seven-year-old I’d actually slept in the street, becoming a high school teacher is a miracle of its own.

At that time I had decided to join the Liberal Party – I was a candidate for a number of seats: the reason I got involved in standing as a candidate was my concern about kids with a low level of literacy and the need provide special education.

I lost the electorate of Camden by 30 votes, which allowed me to be noticed by the Liberal Party, and I was elected to the Upper House.

Given my background, I was always going to be involved in social issues. But as a committed Christian in Parliament, does it mean that I take the Christian moral code, and try to make that the law of NSW?

Initially, that seemed to be the brief, but as I began to understand both the Bible and mankind a little better, I realised that it’s not always possible to legislate that way. One of the big issues was the very vexed question of the injecting room.

At first I thought the idea that you would have an open opportunity to take drugs with the approval of the law was abhorrent, but I began to understand that behind that were individuals who were grappling with something inside themselves that they could not control.

I did understand the concerns of other Christians, but overwhelmingly for me, I felt that this could save their lives, and give them the opportunity to change and repent.

I think that as a Christian in Parliament I was meant to reflect Christian values in the way that I approached the issues, I was to show compassion and represent issues with integrity. I’ve never been ashamed to admit that I am a Christian: the first and last things I read onto the Parliamentary records were verses of Scripture.

I forgive utterly those people who’ve brought my political career to an end.

I’m pretty sure I’m finished with elected office. But in the future I hope I’ll be able to work in some sort of area where I can serve people who are disadvantaged.

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