In the #vss365 community, I have been a long-time dabbler. I am not that reliable on the hashtag, but I enjoy some of the challenges connected with getting an idea into such a short space. In recent posts, I have tried to get a bit deeper on occasions. My usual fare is somewhat flippant and idiotic, but in one post, for which the image above was used, I wanted to challenge some ideas that have gained currency out there.
The challenge here is to the tendency of many to revise history to suit their modern agendas and hijack an historical figure to whatever cause they might have under their bonnet at the time. And this is where the gun-wielding bushranger comes in.
Edward “Ned” Kelly (c. 1854 - 1880) was a bushranger active in the north of Victoria, Australia. While he had been an active criminal from his youth, it was not until Ned Kelly gunned down three police officers at Stringybark Creek that he gained true notoriety on a national and, eventually, international scale. On the run, the Kelly Gang (Ned Kelly, Dan Kelly, Joe Byrne, and Steve Hart) robbed a couple of banks, burned mortgage papers, and came to be seen as a risk to the very stability of the colony. The last stand at Glenrowan, an attempt by the Gang to lure the Victorian Police into a trap with the aim of killing as many officers as possible, ended in tragedy. Only Ned Kelly survived, and at that he was heavily wounded, to face trial. He was hanged at the Old Melbourne Gaol on 11 November, 1880.
Ned Kelly, over the years, has been reinterpreted in any number of different ways by books and in film. He has been painted as a quintessential Aussie larrikin, and also given the veneer of a freedom fighter for Irish equality in the colony. In a recent film, Kelly was portrayed as being homosexual, along with some of the other members of the Kelly Gang. Given Kelly’s limited writing skills and the equally sparse writings he left behind (the Jerilderee letter is the only one, as far as I know), there is not much to work from to get at Kelly’s inner thinking. The fact remains Kelly is one of the most divisive figures in Australian history. And yet, he is still shanghaied to just about any cause you can imagine. Some theories about him are more plausible than others, and some are outright farcical.
The juxtaposition of Ned Kelly holding a Colt revolver in the middle of a disco dance floor with a t-shirt with “Make love not war” on it is meant to jolt the viewer and reader out of the comfortable categories we assign to Ned Kelly. Kelly was known to like dancing, but there was no way he would have been seen among disco-going peace lovers. Ned Kelly famously beat the living crap out of Isaiah “Wild” Wright in a bare-knuckle boxing match. Wright was a man famed for his vile temper and vicious fists. Kelly was a capable and skilled fighter, and no man of peace. Violence was something Kelly was very well versed with.
And this segues into the quote at the bottom of the image. Part of the revisions Kelly has had foisted on him have ignored much of his upbringing. To present Kelly in certain guises, one has to ignore much in the historical record. Kelly and his family were devout and very strict Catholics, by all accounts, despite the criminal activities they were involved in. To suggest, for example, that Kelly was gay, ignores the deep religious values he adhered to, as well as the complete lack of evidence to that effect. Sadly for the three police officers, Kelly’s religious ethics did not cover murdering police officers.
Progressive Christians, in order to maintain many of their beliefs, must get rid of nearly two thousand years of Christian belief. For example, one of my favourite beliefs of progressive Christianity is the idea the Bible has errors in it and is not inspired by God. By making this claim, progressives are able to ignore whatever the Bible might say against their preconceived ideas. Yet, it is clear, even in the New Testament, that Christians believed the scriptures, (and they include Paul’s writings and the Gospels in this), were inspired by God through human writers. Therefore, to be able to support LGBTQ+ morality and other things, progressive Christians need the Bible to have errors in it and not be inspired by God. Yet, by holding to this, they must convince themselves that two thousand years of Christians were completely wrong.
By using the question, I am suggesting the idea Ned Kelly was a model of Christian virtue and Jesus would agree with him murdering cops is an utter load of rubbish. Yet it is not any more insipid and evil than progressive Christians using the Bible to justify whatever immorality and sin our current culture wishes to endorse.
Mistakes, as ever, remain my own.
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